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:haucer  and  his 

TIMES 


BY 

GRACE  E.  HADOW 

LECTURER  IN    ENGLISH,    LADY  MARGARET  HALL,  OXFORD; 
LATE    READER   IN    ENGLISH,  BRYN   MAWR  COLLEGE,  U.S.A. 


NEW   YORK 
HENRY    HOLT    AND    COMPANY 

LONDON 
WILLIAMS   AND   NORGATE 


The  following  volumes  of  kindred  interest  have  already 
been  published  in  this  Library : 

English  Literature :  Mediaeval.    By  Prof.  W.  P.  Ker. 
Mediaeval  Europe.    By  H.  W.  C.  Davis,  M.A. 
The  English  Language.     By  L.  Pearsall  Smith,  M.A. 
Landmarks  in  French  Literature.    By  G.  L.  Strachey, 


•I  •!.'.* 


iv 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAOU 

NOTES  ON  Chaucer's  use  of  *e'     .        .       vi 


I    Chaucer's  life  and  times       ...  ^-7 

II  Chaucer's  works 32 

III  Chaucer's  treatment  of  his  sources     .  69 

IV  Chaucer's  character-drawing         .        .106 
/   V    Chaucer's  humour 143 

-yjf  VI    Chaucer's  descriptive  power  - .    . .  •  173 

VII  ("some  views  of  Chaucer's  on  men  and  \ 

<^-.things .196 

viii    Chaucer's  influence      ....  229 

bibliography 254 

index 255 


NOTES  ON  CHAUCER'S  USE  OF  'E' 

1.  Final  e  is  usually  sounded  in  Chaucerian  verse,  but 

{a)  it  is  slurred  over  before  a  word  beginning  with  a  vowel, 
e.g.  I  nolde  setteat  al  that  noysea  grote  ;  before  certain 
words  beginning  with  A,  such  4s  he ;  any  part  of  the 
verb  to  have  ;  the  adverbs  heer,  now^  and  a  mute  h  as 
in  honour — e.g.  Tho  redde^he  me  how  Sampson  loste^his 
heres  : 

{b)  it  is  sometimes  dropped  in  Certain  words  in  common 
use  such  as  were,  hadde,  wolde,  etc. — e.g.  Woldrgo 
to  bedde^  he  wold^o  lenger  tarie. 

2.  Middle  e  is  sometimes  dropped :  e.g.  hav(e)nes. 

3.  Final  e  should  always  be  sounded  at  the  end  of  a  line. 

These  notes  are  based  on  the  grammatical  hints  given  in 
Professor  Skeat's  Introduction  to  his  single-volume  edition  of 
Chaucer's  complete  works  (Clarendon  Press,  1901),  from  which 
the  illustrations  in  this  book  are  also  drawn.  To  his  researches 
and  to  those  of  Professors  Lounsbury  and  Ten  Brink,  and  of  the 
members  of  the  Chaucer  Society,  all  students  of  Chaucer  must 
gratefully  acknowledge  their  indebtedness.  In  quoting  from 
Chaucer  I  have  kept  to  Professor  Skeat's  spelling.  All  attempts 
to  modernise  Chaucerian  verse  inevitably  result  in  destroying 
something  of  the  charm  and  melody  of  the  original.  Readers 
whose  eyes  are  not  accustomed  to  the  forms  of  Middle  English 
will  find  practically  all  difficulty  disappear  if  they  read  the 
passages  aloud  with  modem  pronunciation.  With  other  Middle 
English  and  Scottish  poets  I  have  reluctantly  taken  greater 
liberties,  since  their  language  is  often  more  remote  from  the 
speech  of  to-day.  An  example  of  the  original  Scottish  forms 
will  be  found  on  p.  240. 

G.  E.  H. 


CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

CHAPTER  I 

Chaucer's  life  and  times 

"  The  biography  of  Chaucer  is  built  upon 
doubts  and  thrives  upon  perplexities  "  accord- 
ing to  one  of  the  most  famous  of  Chaucer 
scholars,  and  the  more  carefully  we  consider 
the  evidence  upon  which  this  statement  is 
based,  the  more  fully  do  we  find  it  endorsed. 
The  name  Chaucer  itself  has  been  variously 
derived  from  the  Latin  calcearius,  a  shoe- 
maker, the  French  chaussier,  a  maker  of  long 
hose,  and  the  French  chaufecire,  chafe-wax 
{i,  e.  a  clerk  of  the  court  of  Chancery  whose 
duty  consisted  in  affixing  seals  to  royal 
documents).  The  one  point  of  agreement 
seems  to  be  that  the  family  was  undoubtedly 
of  French  origin,  though  whether  the  founder 
of  the  English  branch  came  over  with  the 
Conqueror  or  in  Henry  Ill's  reign,  cannot  be 
decided.  Most  scholars  are  now  agreed  that 
Geoffrey  Chaucer  was  born  about  1340,  and 
7 


':«:;/J:CHA-UC;ER/AND  HIS  TIMES 

that  his  father  was  John  Chaucer,  a  vintnpr 
of  Thames  Street,  London,  though  at  one 
time  his  birth  was  dated  as  early  as  1328, 
and  Mr.  Snell,  in  his  Age  of  Chaucer,  en- 
deavours further  to  darken  counsel — already 
sufficiently  obscure — ^by  suggesting  that  there 
may  have  been  two  contemporary  Geoffreys, 
and  that  the  facts  which  are  usually  accepted 
as  throwing  light  on  the  history  of  the  poet 
may  really  apply  to  his  unknown  namesake. 
This  theory,  however,  has  at  present  no 
evidence  to  support  it,  and  it  is  reasonable 
to  assume  that  Chaucer  was  a  native  of 
London.  Possibly  it  was  his  early  association 
with  the  wine-trade  that  gave  him  such 
insight  into  its  mysteries,  and  called  forth  the 
Pardoner's  warning: — 

Now  kepe  yow  fro  the  whyte  and  fro  the  rede, 

And  namely  fro  the  whyte  wyn  of  Lepe, 

That  is  to  selle  in  Fish-strete  or  in  Chepe. 

This  wyn  of  Spayne  crepeth  subtilly 

In  othere  wynes,  growing  faste  by, 

Of  which  there  ryseth  swich  fumositee 

That  when  a  man  hath  dronken  draughtes 

three 
And  weneth  that  he  be  at  hoom  in  Chepe, 
He  is  in  Spayne,  right  at  the  toune  of  Lepe. 
{Pardoners  Tale,  1.  562,  etc.) 

And  it  is  noteworthy  that  more  than  once 


CHAUCER'S  LIFE  AND  TIMES      9 

Chaucer  goes  out  of  his  way  to  inveigh  against 
drunkenness : — 

A  lecherous  thing  is  wyn,  and  dronkenesse 
Is  ful  of  stryving  and  of  wrecchednesse 

For  dronkenesse  is  verray  sepulture 
Of  mannes  wit  and  his  discrecioun. 

{Pardoners  Tale,  1.  549-559.) 

Of  his  early  years  we  know  nothing. 
Probably  he  lived  the  life  of  other  boys  of 
that  time  :  Lydgate's  portrait  of  the  mediaeval 
school-boy  may  well  stand  for  a  type : — 

I  had  in  custom  to  come  to  school  late 
Not  for  to  learn  but  for  a  countenance. 
With  my  fellows  ready  to  debate. 
To  jangle  and  jape  was  set  all  my  pleasaunce. 
Whereof  rebuked  was  my  Chevisaunce  ^ 
To  forge  a  lesyng  and  thereupon  to  muse 
When  I  trespassed  myselfe  to  excuse. 

Loth  to  rise,  lother  to  bed  at  eve ; 
With  unwashed  handes  ready  aye  to  dinner; 
My  Paternoster,  my  Creed,  or  my  Believe 
Cast  at  the  Cook ;   lo  !   this  was  my  manner ; 
Waved  with  each  wind,  as  doth  a  reede-spear ; 
Snibbed  ^  of  my  friends  such  taches  ^  for  to 

amend 
Made  deaf  eare  list  nat  to  them  attend. 

(Testament) 

1  So  that  I  gained  but  little.     ^  chidden  by.     ^  faults. 


10        CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Leland,  with  that  subhme  disregard  for 
anything  so  prosaic  as  evidence  which  charac- 
terises sixteenth-century  biographers,  declares 
that  "  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  a  youth  of  noble 
birth  and  highest  promise,  studied  at  Oxford 
University  with  all  the  earnestness  of  those 
who  have  applied  themselves  most  diligently 
to  learning.  ...  He  left  the  University  an 
acute  logician,  a  delightful  orator,  an  elegant 
poet,  a  profound  philosopher,  and  an  able 
mathematician  " ;  and  to  this  list  of  accom- 
plishments he  afterwards  adds,  "  and  a  devout 
theologian."  Fifty  years  later,  Speght — to 
whom  lovers  of  Chaucer  are  deeply  indebted 
in  other  respects — equally  authoritatively 
asserts  that  he  was  at  Cambridge,  but  as  he 
bases  this  assertion  on  a  remark— 

Philogenet  I  called  am  far  and  near 
Of  Cambridge  clerk — 

made  by  one  of  the  characters  in  the  Court  of 
Love,  a  poem  which  scholars  are  now  uni- 
versally of  opinion  is  not  Chaucer's  work, 
it  has  little  weight.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
Chaucer's  name  does  not  appear  in  the  records 
of  any  college  at  either  university,  and,  as 
Professor  Lounsbury  has  conclusively  shown, 
wide  as  are  the  poet's  interests,  and  great  as 


CHAUCER'S  LIFE  AND  TIMES     11 

his  knowledge  undoubtedly  is,  the  scholarship 
shown  by  his  works  is  not  so  remarkable  as 
necessarily  to  imply  close  and '  protracted 
study.  Classical  legends  were  frequently  em- 
bodied in  the  romances  of  an  age  in  which, 
if  we  may  believe  Jean  Bodel,  himself  a  poet, 

Ne   sont  que   trois   matieres   a  nul   homme 

entendant, 
De  France,  et  de  Bretagne,  et  de  Rome  la 

grant,^ 

and  the  habit  of  treating  Alexander  the  Great 
as  if  he  were  brother-in-arms  to  Roland  and 
Oliver  naturally  opened  the  door  to  all  sorts 
of  embellishments  and  modifications.  A  veil 
of  romance  covers  and  colours  the  history  of 
Greece  and  Rome.  To  Chaucer,  Cleopatra  is 
akin  to  the  Lady  of  the  Hideous  Pass,  or 
Morgan  le  Fay.  The  account  of  her  death 
given  in  the  Legend  of  Good  Women  (1.  671, 
etc.)  is  purely  mediaeval : — 

(She)  made  her  subtil  workmen  make  a  shryne 
Of  alle  the  rubies  and  the  stones  fyne 
In  all  Egipte  that  she  coude  espye ; 
And  putte  ful  the  shryne  of  spycerye, 

*  There  are  but  three  histories  to  which  any  man  will 
hsten. 
Of  France,  and  of  Britain  and  of  Rome  the  Great. 


12       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

And  leet  the  cors  embaume  ;^  and  forth  she  f ette 
This  dede  cors,  and  in  the  shryne  hit  shette.^ 
And  next  the  shryne  a  pit  than  doth  she  grave ; 
And  alle  the  serpents  that  she  mighte  have 
She  putte  hem  in  that  grave.  ... 

....  a  • 

And  with  that  word,  naked,  with  ful  good 

herte, 
Among  the  serpents  in  the  pit  she  sterte.^ 

Nor  is  this  devout  theologian  always 
accurate  in  his  references  to  Bible  history. 
His  allusions  to  Old  Testament  stories  are 
full  of  mistakes,  as,  for  instance,  when  he 
speaks  (in  Book  of  Duchesse^  1.  738)  of  Samson 
slaying  himself  with  a  pillar  for  love  of  Delila. 
It  was  not  an  age  of  nice  scholarship,  or  care 
for  detail.  Men  used  stories  as  they  found 
them,  and  repeated  them  as  they  happened 
to  remember  them,  and  no  one  was  hyper- 
critical enough  to  refer  to  the  original.  More 
than  half  a  century  after  Chaucer's  death 
Caxton  translates  the  j3Eneid,  not  from  the 
Latin  of  Virgil,  but  from  "  a  little  book  in 
French,"  and  Gawain  Douglas,  the  most 
scholarly  of  all  the  Scottish  poets  of  the  early 
sixteenth    century,    regards    it    as    a    moral 

1  And  had  the  corpse  (^.  e,  Antony's)  embalmed. 

2  And  forth  she  fetched  this  dead  corpse,  and  shut  it  in 
the  shrine. 

3  sterte,  sprang. 


CHAUCER'S  LIFE  AND  TIMES     13 

allegory  of  the  soul's  progress,  cast  in  the  form 
of  an  epic.  But  while  Chaucer's  occasional  mis- 
translations of  Latin  words  and  misrenderings 
of  classical  legends  cannot  be  said  to  disprove 
his  residence  at  one  of  the  universities,  they 
certainly  cannot  be  said  to  support  Leland's 
statement,  and  the  probability  is  that  he 
early  became  attached  to  the  court.  The 
reign  of  Edward  III  witnessed  a  marked  in- 
crease in  the  prosperity  of  the  merchant  class. 
The  members  of  the  great  trade  guilds  were 
men  of  wealth  and  importance  and  there  is 
nothing  surprising  in  finding  a  vintner's  son 
one  of  the  household  of  Elizabeth,  wife  of 
the  king's  son,  Lionel,  Duke  of  Clarence.  In 
fact  the  seals  of  John  Chaucer  and  Agnes 
his  wife  show  that  both  bore  arms.  In  1357 
we  find,  from  the  royal  accounts,  that  Geoffrey 
Chaucer  was  provided  with  a  paltok  (cloak) 
costing  four  shillings,  and  a  pair  of  red  and 
black  breeches  and  a  pair  of  shoes,  valued 
at  three  shillings,  and  in  December  of  the  same 
year  he  received  a  grant  of  2s.  6d.  "  for 
necessaries  against  the  feast  of  the  Nativity  " 
(Chaucer  Soc,  Life  Records  of  Chaucer,  p.  xiv). 
The  Canterbury  Tales  give  abundant  proof 
that  their  author  had  a  keen  eye  for  the 
niceties  of  dress,  and  at  seventeen  he  had 


14       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

doubtless  a  proper  appreciation  of  new  shoes 
and  red  and  black  breeches. 

Two  years  later  (1359)  he  served  in  the 
French  wars  and  was  taken  prisoner  at 
"  Retters,"  a  place  which  has  been  variously 
identified  as  Retiers,  near  Rennes,  and  Rethel, 
near  Reims.  He  was  liberated  in  March 
1360,  Edward  III  paying  £16  (over  £200  of 
our  money)  towards  his  ransom,  which  looks 
as  if  he  were  considered  a  person  of  some 
importance.  Apparently  he  returned  to 
court  life  in  England,  and  to  the  duties  of 
valettus  camerae  regis,  A  valet  of  the  King's 
Chamber  had  to  *'  make  beddis,  to  beare  or 
hold  torches,  to  sett  boardis,  to  apparell  all 
chambres,  and  such  othir  seruices  as  the 
Chamberlain,  or  Vshers  of  the  Chambre, 
comaunde  or  assigne,  to  attend  the  Chambre, 
to  watch  the  King  by  course,  to  go  in  messages, 
etc."  {Life  Records,  Pt.  II,  p.  xi),  and  holders 
of  the  office  must  have  had  ample  opportunity 
of  acquiring  the  wisdom  of  Placebo : — 

I  have  now  been  a  court-man  al  my  lyf . 

Arid  god  it  woot,^  though  I  unworthy  be, 
I  have  stonden  in  ful  greet  degree 
Abouten  lordes  of  ful  heigh  estaat ; 
Yet  hadde  I  never  with  noon  of  hem  debaat. 

*  God  kQows. 


CHAUCER'S   LIFE  AND  TIMES     15 

I  never  hem  contraried,^  trewely ; 
I  woot  wel  that  my  lord  can  ^  more  than  I. 
What  that  he  seith,  I  holde  it  ferme  and  stable  ; 
I  say  the  same,  or  elles  thing  semblable.^ 
A  fill  gret  fool  is  any  conseillour, 
That  serveth  any  lord  of  heigh  honour, 
That  dar  presume,  or  elles  thenken  it. 
That  his  conseil  sholde  passe  his  lordes  wit. 
Nay,  lordes  been  no  foles,*  by  my  fay. 

(Marchantes  Tale,  1.  1492,  etc.) 

In  1366  a  pension  was  granted  to  Philippa 
Chaucer,  one  of  the  damsels  of  the  Queen's 
Chamber,  and  it  is  usually  thought  that  this 
indicates  Chaucer's  marriage  about  this  time, 
since  in  1381  the  money  was  paid  "  to  Geoffrey 
Chaucer,  her  husband."  Philippa  seems  to 
have  been  the  sister — the  Chaucer  Society 
suggests,  the  sister-in-law — of  Katherine 
Swynford,  who  became  John  of  Gaunt's  third 
wife,  and  this  connection  possibly  helps  to 
explain  the  consistent  kindness  shown  to 
Chaucer  by  the  House  of  Lancaster.  Various 
attempts  have  been  made  to  show  that  the 
marriage  was  an  unhappy  one.  Some  of 
these  will  be  noticed  later  in  treating  of 
Chaucer's  women,  here  it  may  suffice  to  say 
that   although  it   is   true  that  he  paints   a 

^  contradicted.  ^  knows. 

'  or  else  something  similar.        *  fools. 


16       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

sufficiently  gloomy  picture  of  married  life  in 
the  Lenvoy  de  Chaucer  a  Bukton,  that  neither 
the  host  nor  the  merchant  are  happy  in  their 
choice,  and  that  the  Lenvoy  which  concludes 
the  Clerkes  Tale  warns  husbands  that  if  they 
expect  to  find  their  wives  patient  Griseldas 
they  will  certainly  be  disappointed,  we  have 
to  remember  that  the  shrewish  wife  was  as 
stock  a  comic  convention  of  those  days  as 
the  shrewish  mother-in-law  of  later  times, 
and  when  it  comes  to  taking  away  the  char- 
acter of  Philippa  Chaucer  on  the  ground  that 
her  husband  complains  in  the  Hous  of  Fame^ 
that  he  is  unaccustomed  to  be  awakened  gently, 
it  is  impossible  not  to  feel  that  she  is  receiv- 
ing unnecessarily  harsh  treatment.  Equally 
slight  is  the  evidence  for  his  suffering  from 
an  unhappy  love  affair.  In  the  Parlement 
of  Foules  (11.  89,  90)  he  speaks  of  himself  as 

Fulfild  of  thought  and  besy  hevinesse ; 

For  bothe  I  hadde  thing  which  that  I  nolde,^ 

And  eek  I  ne  hadde  that  thing  that  I  wolde, 

and  commentators  have  leaped  to  the  con- 
clusion that  he  is  here  referring  to  his  wife  and 
a  lady  of  high  rank  for  whom  he  sighed  in 
vain.  In  the  same  way  when,  in  the  Book  of 
the  Duchesse^  he  speaks  of  having  suffered  for 
^  I  had  the  thing  I  did  not  want. 


CHAUCER'S  LIFE  AND  TIMES     17 

eight  years  from  a  sickness  which  one  physician 
alone  can  cure,  this  is  taken  as  an  unmis- 
takable reference  to  the  same  unrequited 
passion.  But  we  have  nothing  to  show  that 
in  these  passages  Chaucer  is  revealing  his 
actual  feelings.  To  be  crossed  in  love  is 
proper  to  every  poet,  and  if  his  wife  might 
have  been  justly  annoyed  when  in  1382 — at 
least  sixteen  years  after  his  marriage — he  wrote 

...  I  knowe  not  love  in  dede 
Ne  wot  how  that  he  quyteth  folk  hir  hyre,* 
(Parlement  of  Foules^  11.  8,  9.) 

"  Rosemounde  " — if  she  had  any  real  exist- 
ence— can  hardly  have  felt  complimented 
by  the  affection  of  a  poet  who  told  her — and 
the  world  at  large — 

Nas  never  pyk  walwed  in  galauntyne 
As  I  in  love  am  walwed  and  y-wounde.^ 

There  is  no  proof  one  way  or  the  other.- 

We  know  nothing  of  his  children,  except 
that  in  1391  he  wrote  a  treatise  on  the  astro- 
labe for  his  little  son  Lewis,  then  ten  years  of 
age.  Gascoigne,  a  generation  after  Chaucer's 
death,  speaks  of  Thomas  ^Chaucer,  a  well- 
known  man  of  wealth  and  position  in  the  early 

^  *How  he  pays  folk  what  he  owes  them. 
2  No  pike  ever  so  wallowed  in  a  galantine 
As  I  wallow  and  am  entangled  in  love. 


18        CHAUCER  AND  HIS   TIMES 

fifteenth  century,  more  than  once  Speaker  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  as  Geoffrey's  son, 
but  no  mention  is  made  of  him  by  Chaucer 
himself  or  by  any  of  his  contemporaries  or 
immediate  successors.  John  of  Gaunt  paid 
a  considerable  sum  of  money  to  place  a  certain 
Elizabeth  Chaucer  in  the  nunnery  of  Barking 
in  1881,  but  she  is  usually  considered  to  have 
been  the  poet's  sister. 

In  1367  Chaucer  himself  was  granted  a 
pension  of  tweiii:y  marks  a  year  for  life,  in 
recognition  of  his  services,  and  in  1368  (or, 
according  to  Mr.  G.  C.  Coulton,  1372)  he  was 
promoted  to  be  an  Esquire  of  the  royal  house- 
hold. The  duties  of  an  esquire  seem  better 
suited  to  a  poet  than  those  of  a  valet :  "  These 
Esquires  of  houshold  of  old  be  accustumed 
winter  &  summer  in  afternoons  &  iii  eunings 
to  drawe  to  Lordes  Chambres  within  Court, 
there  to  keep  honest  company  after  there 
Cunninge,  in  talking  of  Cronicles  of  Kinges  & 
of  others  pollicies,  &  in  pipeing  or  harpinge, 
songinges  or  other  actes  marcealls,  to  helpe  to 
occupie  the  Court,  &  accompanie  estraingers 
till  the  time  require  of  departing." 

In  1369  a  Geoffrey  Chaucer  was  again  with 
the  army  in  France,  but  no  particular  adven- 
tures seem  to  have  befallen  him. 


CHAUCER'S  LIFE  AND  TIMES     19 

At  this  time  John  of  Gaunt's  influence  was 
paramount  at  the  English  court,  which  may 
partly  account  for  Chaucer's  steady  and  rapid 
promotion.  In  1370  he  was  sent  abroad  on 
an  important  mission — the  exact  nature  of 
which  we  do  not  know — and  two  years  later 
he  went  to  Genoa  to  arrange  which  English 
port  should  become  the  headquarters  of  the 
Genoese  trade.  From  Genoa  he  went  to 
Florence,  and  by  November  1373  he  was  back 
in  England  again. 

When  Chaucer  went  to  Italy,  Dante  had 
already  been  dead  for  over  fifty  years,  but 
Petrarch  and  Boccaccio,  the  other  members 
of  that  great  trilogy  of  the  earlier  Renaissance, 
were  both  alive.  Chaucer  makes  his  clerk 
declare  that  he  learned  the  tale  of  Griselda 

.  ...  at  Padowe  of  a  worthy  clerk, 

Fraunceys  Petrark,  the  laureat  poete, 
Highte  this  clerk,  whos  rethoryke  sweete 
Enlumined  al  Itaille  of  poetrye,^ 

{Clerkes  Prologue,  11.  31-33.) 

but  it  is  impossible  to  say  whether  this  is 
autobiographical  or  not.     The  two  poets  may 

*  Francis  Petrarch,-  the  laureat  poet. 
This  clerk  was  called,  whose  rhetoric  sweet 
Illumined  all  Italy  with  poetry. 


20        CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

well  have  met,  but  in  this,  as  in  so  many  other 
cases,  we  cannot  be  certain.  It  is  improbable 
that  he  ever  met  Boccaccio,  since,  largely  as 
he  borrows  from  the  Filostrato  and  the  Teseide, 
he  never  once  mentions  Boccaccio's  name,  and 
when,  in  Troilus  and  Criseyde^  he  confesses 
that  he  is  indebted  to  an  earlier  poet  for  his 
story,  he  gives  him  the  apparently  fictitious 
name  of  Lollius.  Mr.  Coulton  suggests  that 
Boccaccio's  works  may  have  been  published 
anonymously  and  that  Chaucer  may  have 
been  ignorant  of  their  real  author,  and  this 
could  hardly  have  been  the  case  if  the  two 
had  met.  But  whether  Chaucer  had,  or  had 
not,  any  personal  intercourse  with  Petrarch 
and  Boccaccio,  both  their  work  and  Dante's 
exercised  marked  influence  upon  him.  More 
of  this  will  be  said  in  the  next  chapter;  here 
it  is  sufficient  to  note  that  the  Italian  mission 
affected  not  only  his  material  prosperity  but 
also  his  literary  development. 

Meanwhile  he  continued  to  grow  in  favour 
at  court.  On  St.  George's  Day,  1374,  he  was 
granted  a  daily  pitcher  of  wine  from  the  royal 
cellars — later  commuted  for  a  payment  in 
money.  In  the  following  May  he  rented  the 
gate-house  of  Aldgate  from  the  corporation 
of  London.     A  month  later  he  was  appointed 


CHAUCER'S   LIFE  AND  TIMES     21 

controller  of  customs  for  wool,  etc.,  m  the 
port  of  London,  receiving  a»  few  days  after- 
wards an  additional  pension  of  £10  a  year 
from  John  of  Gaunt  and  his  wife.  OflBce 
work  seems  to  have  weighed  heavily  on  the 
poet,  and  there  may  well  be  truth  in  the 
complaint  of  the  Hous  of  Fame  (Bk.  II, 
1.  644,  etc.)  that  it  cut  him  off  from  all  inter- 
course with  the  world': — 

,  .  .  thou  hast  no  tydinges 
Of  Loves  folk,  if  they  be  glade, 
Ne  of  noght  elles  that  god  made ; 
And  noght  only  fro  f er  contree 
That  ther  no  tyding  comth  to  thee, 
But  of  thy  verray  neyghebores, 
That  dwellen  almost  at  thy  dores, 
Thou  herest  neither  that  ne  this ; 
For  whan  thy  labour  doon  al  is. 
And  hast  y-maad  thy  rekeninges. 
In  stede  of  reste  and  newe  thinges, 
Thou  gost  hoom  to  thy  hous  anoon ; 
And,  also  domb  as  any  stoon, 
Thou  sittest  at  another  boke. 
Til  fully  daswed  is  thy  loke,^ 
And  livest  thus  as  an  hermyte 
Although  thjm  abstinence  is  lyte. 

In  November  1375   Chaucer  was  granted 
the  wardship  of  Edmund  Staplegate  of  Kent. 
Few  persons  nowadays  would  welcome  such 
1  Till  fully  dazed  is  thy  look. 


22       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

a  charge,  but  in  the  fourteenth  century  the 
position  of  guardian  was  highly  coveted,  and 
not  infrequently  bought  for  a  good  round 
sum,  since  the  holder  had  a  right  to  a  certain 
percentage  (sometimes  amounting  to  as  much 
as  10  %)  of  the  ward's  property,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  power  of  selling  him  (or 
her)  in  marriage.  This  particular  wardship 
brought  in  £103. 

In  1376-7  Chaucer  was  again  employed  on 
various  secret  missions  abroad.  In  April 
1377  he  was  sent  to  France  to  treat  for  peace 
with  Charles  V,  for  which  service  he  received 
£48  ISSo  4d.  In  June  of  this  year  Edward  III 
died,  but  for  a  time  John  of  Gaunt  still  re- 
tained his  power,  and  soon  after  the  accession 
of  the  boy  king,  Richard  II,  we  find  Chaucer 
sent  on  an  embassy  to 

Barnabo  Viscounte, 
God  of  delyt,  and  scourge  of  Lumbardye. 
{Monkes  Tale,  11.  408-409.) 

Amongst  those  whom  he  appointed  to  act 
for  him  during  his  absence,  was  his  friend  and 
fellow-poet,  John  Gower. 

In  May  1380  occurred  a  curious  incident, 
of  which  no  full  and  satisfactory  explanation 
has  yet  been  found.     By  a  deed  dated  May 


CHAUCER'S   LIFE  AND   TIMES     23 

1st,  one  Cecilia_j^_Chaumpaigne  releases 
Geoffrey  Chaucer  from  a  charge  which  she 
had  brought  against  him  de  raptu  meo.  It 
has  been  suggested  {Camb.  Hist  Lit^  Vol.  II) 
that  this  may  refer  to  one  of  those  attempts 
to  carry  off  an  heir  or  heiress  and  marry  them 
forcibly  to  some  relation  of  the  abductor, 
which  were  not  infrequent  at  the  time, 
Chaucer's  own  father  had  been  the  victim  of 
such  an  attempt,  being  kidnapped  in  order 
that  he  might  be  married  to  Joan  de  Westhalco 
The  case  had  come  before  the  courts  and  the 
jury  found  that  "  the  defendants  had  by  night 
forcibly  abducted  John  le  Chaucer  from  the 
plaintiff's  custody,  but  did  not  marry  him," 
and  assessed  the  damages  at  £250.  John 
Chaucer  was  under  fourteen  at  the  time,  and 
there  are  instances  of  mere  babies  of  four  and 
five  being  carried  off  in  the  same  way.  One 
poor  little  lady  was  twice  widowed  and  thrice 
married  before  she  was  nine.  Whatever  the 
facts  may  have  been  in  connection  with 
Cecilia  de  Chaumpaigne  it  is  evident  that 
Chaucer's  influence  at  court  was  sufficient  to 
protect  him  from  any  unpleasant  consequences. 
A  year  later  (May  1382)  to  his  controllership 
of  wool  was  added  that  of  petty  customs. 
This  probably  meant  a  substantial  increase 


24        CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

of  income,  but  the  poet,  who  found  his  original 
duties  sufficiently  irksome,  does  not  seem  to 
have  looked  with  favour  upon  a  corresponding 
increase  in  office  hours.  In  February  1385 
he  was  granted  the  privilege  of  appointing 
a  permanent  deputy  to  perform  his  official 
duties.  Professor  Skeat  suggests  that  the 
expressions  of  gratitude  towards  the  queen 
which  are  inserted  in  the  later  version  of  the 
prologue  to  the  Legend  of  Good  Women,  point 
to  the  probability  that  he  owed  this  unusual 
concession  to  her  intervention. 

About  this  time  Chaucer  seems  to  have 
given  up  his  house  over  Aldgate  and  to  have 
moved  to  Greenwich.  The  lease  of  the  Aid- 
gate  house  was  made  over  to  a  certain  Richard 
Foster  in  1386,  and  in  the  Lenvoy  a  Scogan 
(written  probably  about  1393)  Chaucer  con- 
trasts the  lot  of  his  friend, 

»  .  .  that  knelest  at  the  stremes  heed 
Of  grace,  of  alle  honour  and  worthinesse, 

with  his  own  fate  at  the  other  end  of  the  same 
stream, 

Forgete  in  solitarie  wildernesse, 

and  adds  two  footnotes  to  explain  that  he  is 
referring  in  the  first  place  to  Windsor  and  in 
the  second  to  Greenwich.     If  the  description 


CHAUCER'S  LIFE  AND  TIMES     25 

in  the  prologue  to  the  Legend  of  Good  Women 
is  not  mere  poetic  fiction,  it  would  seem  that 
the  poet  had  a  pleasant  country  house  and 
garden  in  his  "  solitarie  wildernesse,"  and  that 
he  cultivated  the  excellent  habit  of  sleeping 
out  of  doors  in  the  summer. 

Meanwhile  his  activity  foimd  scope  in 
various  directions.  He  had  been  appointed 
a  Justice  of  the  Peace  for  Kent  in  1381,  and 
in  1386  he  entered  Parliament  as  one  of  the 
Knights  of  the  Shire  for  the  same  county.  In 
August  of  this  year  Chaucer's  patron,  John 
of  Gaunt,  went  to  Spain,  and  during  his 
absence  his  brother  and  rival,  Thomas,  Duke 
of  Gloucester,  succeeded  in  establishing  his 
ascendancy  over  the  king.  Chaucer  .ielt  the 
change  at  once..  He  was  deprived  of  both 
his  controUerships,  and  the  money  loss  must 
have  been  considerable.  In  1387  his  wife 
died,  so  that  her  pension  must  also  have 
lapsed.  Evidently  the  poet  was  in  straits, 
for  in  1388  he  was  driven  to  raising  money 
on  his  pensions  and  allowances,  making  them 
over  to  John  Scalby  of  Lincolnshire.  His 
abstinence,  as  we  have  seen,  was  "lyte,"  and 
the  necessity  for  retrenchment  must  have  been 
extremely  galling. 

The  fall  of  Gloucester  in  1389  swept  away 


26        CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

the  clouds  which  had  darkened  the  poet's 
sky.  Once  more  we  find  him  fiUing  one  office 
after  another,  and  engaged  in  such  useful  and 
prosaic  occupations  as  superintending  the 
repairs  done  to  the  banks  of  the  Thames  or 
the  erection  of  scaffolds  in  Smithfield  for  the 
king  and  queen  to  view  the  tournament  held 
there  in  May  1390.  One  of  his  appointments 
was  that  of  Clerk  of  the  Works  to  his  Majesty, 
which  gave  him  charge  of  the  fabric  of  the 
Tower,  Westminster  Palace,  Windsor  Castle, 
and  other  royal  residences.  He  was  com- 
missioner of  the  roads  between  Greenwich 
and  Woolwich,  and  the  post  of  sub-forester 
of  North  Pemberton  Park  (in  Somerset) 
must  have  given  him  ample  opportunity  for 
studying 

The  bilder  ook,  and  eek  the  hardy  asshe ; 
The  piler  elm,  the  cofre  unto  careyne ;  ^ 
The  boxtree  piper ;  ^  holm  ^  to  whippes  lasshe ; 
The  sayling  firr ;  ^  the  cipres,  deth  to  pleyne ;  ^ 
The  sheter  ew,^  the  asp  for  shaftes  pleyne,' 

if  not — 

1  The  box  in  which  dead  bodies  are  put. 

2  Suitable  for  pipes.  ^  Evergreen  oak. 
*  TaU  fir. 

fi  Cypress  which  mourns  for  death,  i,  e.  is  often  found  in 
churchyards. 

«  Yew-tree,  of  which  bows  are  made. 
'  Aspen,  suitable  for  making  arrows. 


CHAUCER'S  LIFE  AND  TIMES     27 

The  olyve  of  pees,  and  eek  the  drunken  vyne 

or — 

The  victor  palm. 

{Parlement  of  Foules,  1. 176,  etc.  The  whole 
passage  is  taken  from  Boccaccio's  Teseide.) 

The  commissionership  of  roads  can  have 
been  no  sinecure.  In  1499 — after  nearly  a 
century  more  of  development  and  civilisation 
— "  a  glover  from  Leighton  Buzzard  travelled 
with  his  wares  to  Aylesbury  for  the  market 
before  Christmas  Day.  It  happened  that  an 
Aylesbury  miller,  Richard  Boose,  finding  that 
his  mill  needed  repairs,  sent  a  couple  of  ser- 
vants to  dig  clay  called  '  Ramming  clay '  for 
him  on  the  highway,  and  was  in  no  way  dis- 
mayed because  the  digging  of  this  clay  made 
a  great  pit  in  the  middle  of  the  road  ten  feet 
wide,  eight  feet  broad,  and  eight  feet  deep, 
which  was  quickly  filled  with  water  by 
the  winter  rains.  But  the  unhappy  glover, 
making  his  way  from  the  town  in  the  dusk, 
with  his  horse  laden  with  paniers  full  of  gloves, 
straightway  fell  into  the  pit,  and  man  and 
horse  were  drowned.  The  miller  was  charged 
with  his  death,  but  was  acquitted  by  the 
court  on  the  ground  that  he  had  no  malicious 
intent  and  had  only  dug  the  pit  to  repair  his 


28       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

mill,  and  because  he  really  did  not  know  of 
any  other  place  to  get  the  kind  of  clay  he 
wanted  save  the  highroad  "  (Mrs.  Green,  Town 
Life  in  the  Fifteenth  Century,  Vol.  II,  pp.  31-2). 
The  modern  traveller  in  the  United  States 
is  sometimes  surprised  at  dusk  by  finding  the 
highway  temporarily  blocked  by  a  house 
which  is  being  moved  from  one  side  to  the 
other  and  has  been  dumped  down  at  the 
end  of  the  day's  work,  but  this  is  nothing 
to  finding  that  the  road  itself  has  been  re- 
moved bodily.  It  is  true  that  the  corporation 
of  Nottingham  issued  an  order  in  1507  for- 
bidding people  to  dig  holes  in  the  market- 
place without  leave,  but  this  was  long  after 
Chaucer's  day,  and  if  such  ordinances  were 
necessary  to  protect  the  actual  market-place 
of  a  busy  commercial  city,  it  is  not  difficult  to 
imagine  the  condition  of  country  roads.  The 
keeping  of  bridges  in  repair  was  looked  upon, 
not  as  a  matter  of  ordinary  business,  but  as 
an  act  of  piety,  so  that  on  the  Continent 
special  "  Bridge  Friars "  existed,  part  of 
whose  religious  duties  consisted  in  such  work. 
In  1311-16  Richard  of  Kellawe,  Bishop  of 
Durham,  offered  forty  days'  indulgence  to 
all  those  "  who  shall  help  by  their  charitable 
gifts,  or  by  their  bodily  labour  "  in  repairing 


CHAUCER'S  LIFE  AND   TIMES     29 

various  roads  and  bridges  ( Jusserand,  English 
Wayfaring  Life  in  the  Middle  Ages,  p.  4). 
And  in  1353  a  patent  of  Edward  III  had 
ordered  the  paving  of  the  highroad  from 
Temple  Bar  to  Westminster,  since  "  it  is  so 
full  of  holes  and  bogs  .  .  .  and  the  pavement 
is  so  damaged  and  broken  "  that  traffic  has 
become  dangerous  to  man  and  beast.  No 
wonder  that  robbers  abounded,  and  that 
pilgrims  found  safety  in  numbers. 

In  1390  highwaymen  seem  to  have  been 
particularly  active,  and  the  commissioner  of 
roads  himself  was  robbed  more  than  once. 
Richard  Brerelay  was  indicted  for  having 
*'  with  others  unknown "  robbed  Geoffrey 
Chaucer  at  Westminster  of  the  sum  of  £10, 
on  the  Tuesday  after  the  Nativity  of  the 
Virgin  Mary  {i.  e.  September  6) ;  and  in  the 
same  year  "  near  the  Fowle  Ok  "  at  Hatcham, 
in  Surrey,  Chaucer  was  robbed  of  a  horse  worth 
£10,  goods  worth  100  shillings,  and  £20  6s.  Sd. 
in  cash.  Some,  at  least,  of  this  seems  to  have 
been  public  money,  for  he  was  granted  a  royal 
pardon  for  the  loss  of  £20  of  the  King's  money 
taken  from  him  "by  some  notable  robbers." 

In  1391  he  lost  his  post  as  Clerk  of  the  Works, 
but  this  does  not  seem  to  imply  any  serious  loss 
of  the  royal  favour,  for  three  years  later  the 


30       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

king  granted  him  a  pension  of  £20  (about  £300 
of  our  money)  a  year  for  life.  During  the 
interval  he  seems  to  have  got  into  money 
difficulties,  for  no  sooner  was  this  grant  made 
than  his  creditors  promptly  sued  him  for  debt. 
In  1398  he  received  an  additional  grant  of 
wine — a  tun  a  year  for  life: — and  was  also 
promoted  to  be  sole,  instead  of  sub-,  forester 
of  North  Pemberton.  In  1399  the  son  of  his 
earliest  and  most  powerful  patron  came  to 
the  throne,  and  Chaucer,  who  was  still 
struggling  with  his  creditors,  addressed  an 
impassioned  appeal  to  him.  Already,  in  1398, 
the  poet  had  been  threatened  with  legal  pro- 
ceedings, and  although  the  king  had  entrusted 
him  with  various  commissions  in  the  country, 
he  had  not  dared  to  leave  his  house  for  fear 
of  arrest  (Ten  Brink,  History  of  English  Liter- 
ature, Vol.  II,  p.  198).    No  wonder  he  sang : — 

To  you,  my  purse,  and  to  non  other  wight 
Compleyne  I,  for  ye  be  my  lady  dere  ! 
I  am  so  sory,  now  that  ye  be  light ; 
For  certes,  but  ye  make  me  hevy  chere. 

{The  Complaint  of  Chaucer  to  his  Empty 

Purse.     Professor   Ten    Brink   believes    this 

poem  to  have  been  addressed  to  King  Richard, 

I  but  Professor  Skeat  has  no  doubt  that  it  was 

addressed  to  Henryc) 


CHAUCER'S  LIFE  AND  TIMES     31 

It  is  consoling  to  learn  that  Henry  IV  added 
forty  marks  a  year  to  the  pension  granted  by 
King  Richard,  thus  bringing  Chaucer's  income 
up  to  £600  or  £700  of  our  money.  This  new 
outburst  of  good  fortune  promised  well  for  the 
future,  and  Chaucer  evidently  looked  forward 
to  a  prosperous  and  comfortable  old  age,  for, 
on  December  24,  1399,  he  took  the  lease  of  a 
house  in  the  garden  of  St.  Mary's,  Westmin- 
ster, for  fifty-four  years.  He  was  not,  how- 
ever, to  make  long  use  of  his  new  possession, 
for  on  October  25,  1400,  he  died,  and  his  grave 
was  the  first  to  mark  the  Poets'  Corner  of 
Westminster  Abbey.  One  of  his  later  bal- 
lades. Truth  may  well  serve  as  epitaph  for 
the  poet  whom  court  life  could  never  corrupt 
into  a  courtier,  and  whose  clear  sight  and  sharp 
wit  never  led  him  into  bitterness  or  cynicism : — 

That  thee  is  sent,  receyve  in  buxumnesse,^ 
The  wrastling  for  this  worlde  axeth  a  fal. 
Her  nis  non  hoom,^  her  nis  but  wildernesse  : 
Forth  pilgrim,  forth!  Forth  beste  out  of  thy  staj! 
Know  thy  contree,  look  up,  thank  God  of  al; 
Hold  the  hye  way,  and  lat  thy  gost  thee  lede :  ^ 
And  trouthe  shal  delivre,  hit  is  no  drede.* 

1  With  cheerfulness.  ^  Here  is  no  home. 

3  Keep  to  the  highway,  and  let  thy  spirit  lead  thee. 
^  And  there  is  no  fear  but  that  truth  shall  dehver  (thee). 


CHAPTER  II 

Chaucer's  works 

When  Chaucer  began  to  write,  English 
Uterature,  was  at  a  low  ebb.  The  Norman 
Conquest  had  practically  killed  the  old  alliter- 
ative poetry,  and  the  passion  and  mysticism 
of  Old  English  epic  and  lament  had  given 
way  to  the  prim  didacticism  of  interminable 
homilies  in  verse,  or  the  jog-trot  respectability 
of  rhymed  chronicles.  "  For  a  long  time 
before  and  after  1100,"  says  Professor  Ker, 
"  there  is  a  great  scarcity  of  English  pro- 
duction," and  the  more  ambitious  attempts  at 
verse  which  appeared  in  the  twelfth,  thir- 
teenth, and  early  fourteenth  centuries,  are 
entirely  lacking  in  the  charm  and  dignity  of 
pre-Conquest  poetry.  "The  verse  of  Laya- 
mon's  Brut  is  unsteady,  never  to  be  trusted, 
changing  its  pace  without  warning  in  a  most 
uncomfortable  way."  Nor  as  a  rule  is  the 
matter  greatly  superior  to  the  manner.  Such 
interest  as  is  possessed  by  the  majority  of  the 
poems  of  this  period  (apart  from  the  definitely 
32 


CHAUCER'S  WORKS  83 

historical  or  philological  point  of  view)  arises 
largely  from  the  unconscious  naivete  and 
simplicity  of  their  authors.  What  hard  heart 
could  refuse  to  be  touched  by  the  difficulties 
which  that  saintly  hermit  Richard  Rolle  of 
Hampole  had  evidently  experienced  in  dis-. 
tinguishing  the  sex  of  a  baby,  or  to  share  in 
the  triumph  with  which  he  suggests  a  solution 
of  the  difficulty : — 

For  unethes  ^  is  a  child  born  fully 

That  it  ne  beginnes  to  yowle  and  cry ; 

And  by  that  cry  men  may  know  then 

Whether  it  be  man  or  woman, 

For  when  it  is  born  it  cries  swa ;  ^ 

If  it  be  man  it  says  "  a,  a." 

That  the  first  letter  is  of  the  nam(e) 

Of  our  fore-father  Adam. 

And  if  the  child  a  woman  be. 

When  it  is  born  it  says  "  e,  e," 

E  is  the  first  letter  and  the  hede  ^ 

Of  the  name  of  Eve  that  began  our  dede.*^ 

But  delightful  as  this  is,  it  is  not  poetry.  In 
the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century  come 
the  notable  exceptions  of  Sir  Gawayne,  The 
Pearly  and  Piers  Plowman,  but  by  this  time 
we    are    already    drawing   near    the    era    of 

1  scarcely.  ^  thus.  ^  head.  *  death. 

The  passage  is  taken  from  Richard  Rolle  of  Hampole's 
Pricke  of  Conscience  (Morris  and    Skeat,   Specimens  of 
Early  English,  Part  II,  p.  108). 
o 


34        CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Chaucer  himself.  His  poor  Parson  dismisses 
the  popular  alliterative  verse  of  the  day 
contemptuously  enough : — 

I  can  nat  geste — rum,  ram,  ruf — by  lettre — 

but  perhaps  his  strictures  must  not  be  taken 
too  seriously,  as  he  goes  on  to  say: — 

Ne,  God  wot,  rym  holde  I  but  litel  bettre — 

a  sentiment  with  which  we  can  hardly 
imagine  Chaucer  to  have  been  in  sympathy. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  lyric  verse  which 
lightens  up  the  three  hundred  years  from 
the  Conquest  to  Chaucer,  has  a  daintiness 
and  grace  which  show  that  the  poetic  sense 
of  England  was  by  no  means  dead.  Sumer 
is  icumen  in^  Lenten  is  come  with  love  to  toune. 
Of  one  that  is  so  fair  and  bright,  and  numberless 
other  songs  with  which  recent  anthologies 
have  made  everyone  familiar  are  sufficient 
evidence  of  this.  But  these  are  chance 
flowers  blossoming  haphazard  beside  the 
dusty  highway. 

One  well-beaten  track,  it  is  true,  does  lead 
us  through  green  glades  and  meadows 
enamelled  with  eye-pleasing  flowers  to  the 
mysterious  depths  of  enchanted  forests 
haunted     by   fell     enchanters     and     baleful 


CHAUCER'S   WORKS  85 

dragons,  but  the  metrical  romances  are  for 
the  most  part  more  or  less  direct  translations 
from  French  originals,  and  show  little  that 
is  distinctively  English,  beyond  a  tendency  to 
cut  the  sentiment  and  come  to  the  story.^ 

To  French  influence  also  we  owe  the 
development  of  satire.  Old  Norse  and  Ice- 
landic poetry  abound  in  instances  of  dry 
humour,  but  the  Anglo-Saxon  idea  of  repartee 
seems — if  we  may  judge  by  pre-Conquest 
literature — to  have  consisted  chiefly  in  such 
grim  jests  as  baking  the  head  of  your  enemy's 
son  in  a  pie  and  inviting  the  father  to  dinner. 
Tenderness,  passion,  imagination,  are  to  be 
found  in  such  poems  as  Beowulf^  the  Husband's 
Lament,  Judith,  but  it  is  not  until  French 
wit  flashes  across  English  seriousness  that 
we  travel  to  the  Land  of  Cokaygne,  where 

There  are  rivers  gTeat  and  fine 
Of  oil,  of  milk,  honey,  and  wine. 
Water  serveth  there  for  nothing 
Save  to  look  at,  and  for  washing : 

or  listen  to  Hendyng's  shrewd  comments  on 
human  nature : — 

^  For  a  comparison  of  the  French  with  the  English 
romances  see  Professor  Ker's  volume  on  Medieval  liter- 
ature in  this  series,  pp.  66-74. 


36       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Many  a  man  saith,  were  he  rich, 
There  shoulde  none  be  me  y-lyche  ^ 

To  be  good  and  free ; 
But  when  he  hath  ought  bygeten  ^ 
All  the  freedom  is  forgeten 
And  laid  under  knee. 
"  He  is  free  of  his  horse,  that  never  had  one," 
Quoth  Hendyng. 

The  prose  of  the  period  is  still  less  inspir- 
ing than  the  poetry.  Not  even  Chaucer 
discovered  •that  prose-writing  is  an  art. 
Works  of  any  importance  were  written  in 
Latin,  and  such  English  prose  as  there  was, 
consisted  in  sermons,  lives  of  the  saints,  etc. 
Now  and  then  some  author  happens  upon  a 
telling  phrase  or  an  apt  illustration,  but  such 
instances  are  few  and  obviously  accidental. 
French  influence  was  too  strong  for  native 
literature  to  put  forth  any  very  vigorous 
shoots  of  its  own,  and  attempts  to  force 
homilies,  scientific  treatises,  and  historical 
records  into  French  rhyme  forms  led  to  the 
production  of  such  dreary  works  as  the 
Cursor  Mundi  or  Layamon's  Brut 

By     the     fourteenth     century,     however, 

Normans  and  Saxons  had  long  since  begun 

to  amalgamate,  and  the  Hundred  Years'  War 

did  much  to  foster  the  spirit  of  patriotism, 

^  like  me.  *  obtained  aught. 


CHAUCER'S   WORKS  37 

and  thus  weld  together  the  conflicting  ele- 
ments of  which  the  nation  was  composed. 
Different  dialects  prevailed  in  different  parts 
of  the  country,  but  they  were  at  least 
varieties  of  English,  and  English  was  the 
language  of  the  people  as  a  whole.  French, 
whether  of  Paris  or  of  Stratford  atte  Bowe, 
was  learned  as  a  foreign  tongue,  although 
as  late  as  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century 
we  still  find  Gower  writing  indifferently  in 
Latin,  French,  and  English.  It  needed  only 
that  there  should  arise  an  author  great 
enough  to  establish  some  one  dialect — or 
combination  of  dialects — as  standard  English, 
and  this  creation  of  language  from  dialect,  we 
owe — among  other  things — in  large  measure 
to  Chaucer.  *" 

London  was  already  the  centre  of  English 
trade  and  industry,  and  the  circumstances  of 
its  position,  which  brought  its;  inhabitants 
into  contact  with  both  Northerners  and 
Southerners,  made  its  dialect  particularly 
suitable  for  the  standard  language  of  the 
country.  Chaucer,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
London  born  and  bred,  and  wrote  naturally 
in  the  "  cokeneye  "  dialect,  thus  helping  to 
establish  it  as  the  common  speech.  The 
modern  reader  who  turns  over  the  pages  of 


38        CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

the  Ayenhite  of  Inwit  or  the  Ancren  Riwle 
finds  himself  confronted  by  what  is  practically 
a  foreign  tongue;  it  is  excusable  if  he  finds 
even  Piers  Plowman  baffling  in  places,  and 
has  difficulty  in  construing  such  passages  as  : — 

He  was  pale  as  a  pelet,  in  the  palsye  he  semed. 
And  clothed  in   a   caurimaury,   I   couthe  it 

nou3te   discreue; 
In  kirtel  and  kourteley,  and  a  knyf  bi  his 

syde; 
Of  a  freres  frokke  were  pe  forsleues,^ 

but  Chaucer's  English,  full  as  it  may  be  of 
old  and  decayed  terms,  presents  few  serious 
difficulties  to  any  ordinary  intelligence.  We 
may  have  to  look  up  a  word  here  and  there 
in  the  glossary,  or  find  ourselves  puzzled  by 
some  astronomical  or  chemical  terms,  but 
these  are  merely  by  the  way,  and  Chaucer 
fairly  lays  claim  to  the  title  of  Father,  not 
only  of  English  poetry,  but  of  modern  Englisk. 
In  metre  his  work  is  no  less  remarkable. 
Professor  Skeat,  in  his  introduction  to  the 
Oxford  edition  of  Chaucer's  works,  gives  a  list 

1  He  was  pale  as  a  stone  ball,  in  a  palsy  he  seemed. 
And  clothed  in  rough  cloth,  I  do  not  know  how  to 

describe  it; 
In  an  under- jacket  and  short  coat,  and  a  knife  by  his 

side; 
The  sleeves  were  like  those  of  a  friar's  habit. 

Piers  Plowman,  V.  78-81. 


CHAUCER'S  WORKS  39 

of  no  less  than  thirteen  metres  which  he  intro- 
duce into  EngUsh  poetry,  consisting  for  the 
most  part  of  modifications  and  alterations  of 
French  and  Italian  models. 

The  so-called  Chaucerian  stanza  consists 
of  seven  lines  of  iambic  verse  rhyming 
ahahbcc — e,  g. : 

Among  thise  childrto  was  a  widwes  s5ne 
A  litfel  clergebn,  sevSn  yeer  6f  age, 
ThS,t  day  by  day  t5  scole  was  his  wone, 
And  eek  ^Iso,  wh^r-as  h6  saugh  th'  image 
Of  Cristas  mod^r,  hadde'^'h^  in  usage 
As  him  wSs  taught,  t6  knele'^adoun  and  seye 
His  Ave  Marie^^as  he  g6th  by  th^  weye. 

It  is  a  modification  of  a  form  used  by  Boccaccio, 
and  was  itself  possibly  used  by  Spenser  as  the 
basis  of  his  peculiar  stanza.  Chaucer  employs 
it  very  largely  for  narrative  purposes,  prevent- 
ing it  from  becoming  monotonous  by  varying 
the  place  of  the  caesura,  and  freely  adding 
or  suppressing  weak  syllables  when  he  so 
desires.  Mr.  A.  W.  Pollard,  in  his  article 
on  Chaucer  in  the  Encyclopcedia  Britannica^ 
declares  that  the  English  poet  borrowed  both 
his  stanza  and  his  decasyllabic  line  from 
Guillaume  de^  Machault.  The  point  of  the 
whole  matter,  however,  lies,  not  in  whether 
Chaucer  was  indebted  to  French  or  Italian 


40       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

sources  for  his  metres,  but  in  the  fact  that 
he  revealed  the  latent  possibilities  of  English 
as  a  poetic  medium. 

It  is  usual  to  divide  Chaucer's  life  into 
three  periods,  and  to  speak  of  him  as  succes- 
sively under  French,  Italian,  and  English 
influence,  and  although,  as  Professor  Ker  has 
pointed  out,  this  method  is  open  to  some 
objections,  it  brings  out  certain  critical  points 
of  interest  and  is  worth  adhering  to  for  the 
sake  of  clearness. 

French,  as  we  have  seen,  had  long  been  the 
dominant  influence  in  English  literature.  To 
French  erotic  poetry  we  owe  the  elaborate 
code  of  duties  owed  by  husband  to  wife  and 
lover  to  mistress,  and  the  whole  artificial 
convention  which  prescribed  unhappy  love 
affairs  and  revelled  in  the  minute  analysis 
of  over-strained  emotion.  "  In  poetry  and 
life,"  says  Ten  Brink,  "  fashion  required  an 
educated  young  man,  especially  one  in  the 
service  of  the  court,  to  fall  in  love  at  the 
earliest  opportunity,  and,  if  possible,  hope- 
lessly." We  have  already  seen  Chaucer 
obeying  this  convention  in  the  Book  of  the 
Duchesse  and  the  Parlement  of  Foules,  and  to 
these  may  be  added  the  Compleinte  unto  Pite, 
the  Compleint  to  his  Lady,  Merciles  Beaute, 


CHAUCER'S  WORKS  41 

To  Bosemounde,  Against  Women  Unconstant, 
An  Amorous  Compleint,  and  Book  I,  stanza  3 
of  Troilus  and  Criseyde.  The  poet  protests 
so  much  that  it  is  difficult  to  beUeve  that  he 
is  describing  anything  more  than  a  lover 
bewailing  his  unhappy  lot  (in  the  French 
fashion).  Evidently  French  love-poetry  ap- 
pealed strongly  to  his  imagination,  for  one 
of  his  earliest  works  is  a  translation  of  the 
famous  Romance  of  the  Rose,  This  long, 
allegorical  poem  (the  original  consists  of 
over  22,000  lines),  falls  into  two  parts.  The 
first,  by  Guillaume  de  Lorris,  describes  the 
search  of  the  ideal  lover  for  the  mystic  rose. 
The  hero  is  admitted  by  the  portress  Idlehess 
into  a  fair  garden  of  flowers,  where  he  finds 
Sir  Mirth,  Lady  Courtesy,  Dame  Gladness, 
and  many  another  gallant  and  debonair 
knight  and  lady.  In  this  garden  is  the 
enchanted  Well  of  Love,  in  whose  depths  the 
lover  beholds  the  image  of  the  Rose.  He 
tries  to  seize  it,  and  finds  that  a  hard  struggle 
lies  before  him  ere  he  can  hope  to  win  the 
prize  of  love.  Lorris  left  the  poem  unfinished,! 
and  the  second  part  was  added  by  Jean  le 
Meung,  a  cynic  with  no  very  high  opinion 
of  women  or  of  love.  He  introduces  a 
sceptical  friend  who  has  a  long  conversation 


42        CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

with  the  lover  in  which  he  points  out  with 
extreme  clearness  the  drawbacks  of  marriage 
and  the  frailties  of  women. 

The  English  version  of  the  poem  consists 
of  three  fragments,  A,  B,  and  C  (it  is  only 
7,696  lines  in  all),  and  scholars  are  divided 
in  opinion  as  to  how  much  of  the  translation 
is  actually  by  Chaucer  himself.  Professor 
Saintsbury,  in  the  Cambridge  History  of 
Literature  considers  that  Chaucer  is  probably 
the  author  of  A,  possibly  the  author  of  B, 
and  probably  not  the  author  of  C.  He  must, 
however,  have  been  known  as  the  translator 
of  the  later  part,  for  in  the  Prologue  to  the 
Legend  of  Good  Women  (written  about  1385), 
the  god  of  love  scolds  the  poet  severely  on 
the  ground, — 

Thou  hast  translated  the  Romauns  of  the  Rose 
That  is  an  hereyse  ageyns  my  lawe. 

Another  early  work  is  the  A. B.C.,  a  hymn 
in  honour  of  the  Virgin,  modelled  upon  a 
similar  poem  by  Guillaume  de  Deguileville. 
Deguileville  was  well  known  as  a  devotional 
writer  at  the  time,  and  according  to  Speght 
Chaucer's  paraphrase  was  written  "  at  the 
request  of  Blanch  Duchesse  of  Lancaster,  as 
a  praier  for  her  priuat  vse,  being  a  woman 


CHAUCER'S  WORKS  43 

in  her  religion  very  deuout."  There  is, 
however,  no  evidence  of  this,  and  Ten  Brink 
believes  that  the  A.B.C.  dates  from  a  later 
period  when  the  poet  was  passing  through  a 
phase  of  deep  religious  feeling.  Whatever 
the  facts  about  this  particular  poem  may  be,  it 
is  interesting  to  notice  that  even  in  these 
early  days  Chaucer  combined  some  of  the 
qualities  of  a  satirist  with  those  of  an  idealist. 
His  first  great  original  work  was  produced 
in  1369,  when  John  of  Gaunt's  beautiful  and 
charming  young  wife  died.  The  Book  of  the 
Duchesse  makes  no  pretence  to  originality  of 
treatment.  The  poet,  after  a  conventional 
lament  over  the  conventional  hard-hearted- 
ness  of  his  mistress,  falls  into  a  conventional 
slumber  in  the  course  of  which  he  has  a 
conventional  dream  that  he  is  following  a 
conventional  hunt  in  a  conventional  forest. 
Here  he  meets  a  handsome  young  man 

Of  the  age  of  four  and  twenty  yeer 

And  he  was  clothed  al  in  blakke. 

The  young  man  is  complaining  to  himself 
most  piteously : — 

Hit  was  gret  wonder  that  nature 

Might  suffre(n)  any  creature 

To  have  swich  sorwe  and  be  not  deed. 


44        CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

The  poet  is  touched  by  his  sorrow,  and  since 
they  have  evidently  lost  the  hunt,  he  begs  the 
mourner  to  tell  him  of  "  his  sorwes  smerte." 
This  opens  the  way  for  a  long,  rambling  lament, 
full  of  allusions  to  classical  mythology.  So 
involved  is  it,  that  the  poet  finds  some 
difficulty  in  grasping  the  point,  and  cuts  into 
a  description  of  the  lady's  charms  with  a 
puzzled, — 

Sir  .  .  .  wher  is  she  now  ? 

The  brief  answer—:. 

I  have  lost  more  than  thou  wenest 

She  is  deed — 

strikes  a  note  of  tragedy  which  is  beyond  the 
scope  of  the  youthful  poet  as  yet,  and  the 
elegy  ends  abruptly  with 

Is  that  your  los  ?  by  god  hit  is  routhe.^ 

The  scheme  of  the  poem  is  simple,  the  idea 
is  borrowed  from  French  laments,  and  whole 
passages  are  translated  from  de  Machault's 
Le  Bit  de  la  Fontaine  Amoureuse  and  Remede 
de  la  Fortune,  but  through  all  the  stiffness  and 
conventionality,  all  the  obvious  immaturity, 
there  flash  unmistakable  signs  of  vigorous 
^  A  pity. 


CHAUCER'S  WORKS  45 

and  original  genius.  Every  poet  of  the  day 
finds  himself  wandering  in  a  forest,  but 
Chaucer  alone  meets 

A  whelp  that  fanned  me  as  I  stood, 

That  hadde  y-foUowed,  and  coude  no  good. 

Hit  com  and  creep  to  me  as  lowe, 

Right  as  hit  hadde  me  y-knowe, 

Hild  doun  his  heed  and  joyned  his  eres 

And  leyde  al  smothe  doun  his  heres ; 

or  notices  with  tender  amusement  the 

many  squirelles,  that  sete 
Ful  hye  upon  the  trees,  and  etc, 
And  in  hir  maner  made  festes. 

The  praises  of  many  fair  ladies  were  sung 
by  troubadour  and  minstrel,  but  it  would  be 
hard  to  find  another  heroine  possessed  of  the 
gaiety  and  vigour  and  charm  of  Blanche : — 

I  saw  hir  daunce  so  comlily 
Carole  and  singe  so  swetely, 
Laughe  and  pleye  so  womanly, 
And  loke  so  debonairly, 
So  goodly  speke  and  so  frendly. 
That  certes  I  trow  that  evermore 
Nas  seyn  so  blisful  a  tresore 
•  •  •  •  •  •      ' 

Therewith  hir  liste  so  wel  to  live. 
That  dulnesse  was  of  hir  a-drad. 


46        CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Already  Chaucer  shows  that  truth  to  life, 
that  impatience  of  artificiality  which  are  to 
become  two  of  his  most  striking  characteristics. 
A  number  of  experiments  in  verse  follow. 
Chaucer  had  a  habit  of  rough-casting  a  poem, 
then  leaving  it  for  some  time,  and  eventually 
using  it  in  a  more  or  less  modified  form  in 
some  later  work.  The  story  of  Ceys  and 
Alcioun^  which  forms  part  of  the  introduction 
to  the  Booh  of  the  Buchesse,  originally  appears 
to  have  been  written  as  a  separate  poem,  and 
between  1369  and  1379  we  find  no  fewer  than 
seven  works,  in  prose  and  poetry,  which  were 
afterwards  embodied  in  the  Canterbury  Tales : 
the  Lyf  of  St  Cecyle  (afterwards  used  for  the 
Second  Nonnes  Tale);  parts  of  the  Monkes 
Tale;  the  greater  part  of  the  Clerkes  Tale; 
Palamon  and  Arcite  (which  forms  the  basis 
of  the  Knightes  Tale)  ;  the  Tale  of  Meliheus ; 
the  Persones  Tale  ;  and  the  Man  of  Lawe^s  Tale, 
In  addition  to  these  come  the  Compleint  to 
his  Lady  ;  An  Amorous  Compleint  ;  Womanly 
Noblesse  ;  Compleint  unto  Pite  ;  Anelida  and 
Arcite  (containing  ten  stanzas  from  Palamon) ; 
Of  the  Wretched  Engendring  of  Mankind  (a 
prose  translation  of  Innocent  Ill's  De  Miseria 
Humance  Conditionis,  of  which  the  title  alone 
remains,  though  fragments  of  it  are  used  in 


CHAUCER'S  WORKS  47 

the  Man  of  Lawe*s  Tale);  a  translation  of 
Boethius's  Consolations  of  Philosophy;  the 
Complaint  of  Mars ;  Troilus  and  Criseyde ; 
Wordes  to  Adam  Scriveyn  ;  The  Former  Age  ; 
Fortune.  Apart  from  Troilus  and  Criseyde  and 
the  poems  afterwards  used  in  the  Canterbury 
Tales,  none  of  these  works  are  of  any  great 
importance  in  themselves,  but  in  them  we  see 
a  steady  development  in  technical  skill.  The 
verse  of  the  Book  of  the  Duchesse  is  easy  and 
flowing  but  not  distinguished.  The  Compleint 
unto  Pite  shows  a  freedom  and  boldness  in  the 
use  of  the  French  seven-lined  stanza  which 
marks  a  new  departure  in  English  versifica- 
tion. Chaucer  tries  his  hand  at  roundels  and 
balades,  at  narrative  poetry  and  love  laments, 
and  the  result  is  that  he  attains  a  suppleness 
and  melody  unknown  to  his  predecessors 
and  unfortunately  ignored  by  his  immediate 
successors.  The  music  of  his  verse  is  not 
the  least  of  his  contributions  to  a  literature, 
whose  exponents  could  placidly  remark 

And  trouthe  of  metre.  I  sette  also  a-syde; 
For  of  that  art  I  hadde  as  tho  no  guyde 
Me  to  reduce  when  I  went  ,a-wronge  : 
I  toke  none  hede  nouther  of  shorte  nor  longe. 

Lydgate  did  not  begin  to  write  until  after 
Chaucer's  death,  but  the  lines  quoted  above 


48       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

from  the  Troy  Booh  exactly  express  the 
point  of  view  of  the  majority  of  fourteenth- 
and  fiiteenth-century  poets. 

In  1372,  as  we  have  seen,  Chaucer  went  to 
Italy,  and  the  influence  of  Italian  poetry 
upon  him  can  hardly  be  exaggerated.  Pro- 
fessor Ten  Brink  believes  that  the  influence 
of  Dante  was  largely  responsible  for  a  sudden 
quickening  and  deepening  of  religious  feeling 
in  Chaucer,  and  he  attributes  the  A.B.C., 
the  Lyf  of  St.  Cecyle,  and  the  translation  of 
the  De  Miseria  Humance  Conditionis  to  this 
period.  Whether  he  is  right  or  wrong  in 
this  respect  (and  Professor  Skeat  dates  both 
the  A.B.C.  and  the  Lyf  of  St  Cecyle  before 
the  Italian  journey)  there  can  be  no  question 
as  to  Chaucer's  profound  admiration  for  the 
author  of  the  Divina  Commedia.  The  Inuocado 
ad  Mariam  which  prefaces  the  Second  Nonnes 
Tale  is  drawn  from  the  concluding  canto  of 
the  ParadisOy  the  most  striking  of  all  the 
Monk's  tales 

Of  him  that  stood  in  greet  prosperitee 
And  is  y-fallen  out  of  heigh  degree 
Into  miserie,  and  endeth  wrecchedly, 

is  that  of  Count  Hugo  of  Pisa,  which  is  drawn 
direct  from  Canto  XXXIII  of  the  Inferno^ 


CHAUCER'S  WORKS  49 

and  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel  that  the 
intense  reverence  for  things  holy  which  under- 
lay all  Chaucer's  shrewdness  and  humour, 
may  have  been  due — at  least  in  part — to  the 
influence  of  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  religious 
poets.  Of  Petrarch  he  speaks  with  admira-  r 
tion  in  the  preface  to  the  tale  which  he 
borrows  from  him,  but  except  for  a  transla- 
tion of  the  eighty-eighth  sonnet  which  is  in- 
serted in  Book  I  of  Troilus  and  Criseyde, 
under  the  heading  Cantus  Troiliy  there  is 
little  evidence  of  any  direct  influence.  From  V' 
Boccaccio  he  borrowed^  freely,  with  a  royal 
bettering  in  the  borrowing.  Troilus  and 
Criseyde  is  taken  bodily  from  the  FilostratOy 
though  with  numerous  additions,  omissions, 
alterations,  and  adaptations :  the  Knightes 
Tale  is  condensed  from  the  twelve  books  of 
the  Teseide :  the  idea  of  the  Canterbury 
Tales  is  taken  from  that  of  the  Decamerone, 
though  with  the  very  significant  difference 
that  whereas  Boccaccio's  story-tellers  are  all 
drawn  from  one  class  and  are  shut  off  from 
intercourse  with  the  outer  world,  Chaucer's 
range  from  knight  to  miller,  from  aristocratic 
prioress  to  bourgeois  wife  of  Bath,  and  the 
fact  of  their  being  on  a  pilgrimage  affords 
opportunity  for  incident  on  the  way  and  for 


50        CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

the  introduction  of  fresh  characters,  thus 
giving  scope  for  far  greater  variety  and  keeping 
far  more  closely  in  touch  with  actual  life. 

Between  1377  and  1382  he  translated 
Boethius's  De  Consolatione  Philosophice,  a 
work  which  evidently  produced  a  deep 
impression  upon  him. 

In  1382  Chaucer  produced  another  topical 
poem.  So  far  he  had  addressed  himself  to 
John  of  Gaunt — for  whom  not  only  the  Book 
of  the  Duchesse,  but  the  scandalous  Compleint 
of  Mars  is  said  to  have  been  written;  now 
he  addresses  King  Richard,  and  after  the 
fashion  of  the  day  clothes  in  allegorical 
compliment  the  story  of  his  wooing  of  Anne 
of  Bohemia,  who  had  twice  before  been 
engaged  to  other  suitors.  The  wedding 
festivities  lasted  over  February  14,  when 
St.  Valentine  marries  every  year. 

The  lyric  lark,  and  the  grave  whispering  dove, 
The  sparrow  that  neglects  his  life  for  love. 
The  household  bird  with  the  red  stomacher ; 

and  the  opportunity  was  too  good  a  one  to 
be  lost.  Chaucer  saluted  his  king  and  queen 
in  the  Parlement  of  Foules,  which  though 
partially  based  on  the  fabliau  of  Hucline  and 
Eglantine  and  containing  passages  from  Dante 


CHAUCER'S   WORKS  61 

and  Boccaccio,  is  in  all  essentials  a  thoroughly 
original  work.  The  poet,  as  usual,  falls 
asleep  and  has  a  dream.  He  is  taken  by 
Scipio  Africanus  (he  had  just  been  reading 
the  Somnium  Scipionis),  to  the  gate  of  a 
park  which  he  is  told  none  but  the  servants 
of  Love  may  enter.  Although  he  himself  is 
but  dull  and  has  lost  the  taste  of  love  he  is 
permitted  to  see  what  passes  in  order  that 
he  may  describe  it,  and  is  led  into  a  beautiful 
garden  in  which  many  fair  ladies,  such  as 
Beautee  and  Jolyte,  are  disporting  themselves 
under  the  eye  of  Cupid.  A  number  of  women 
are  dancing  round  a  temple  of  brass,  before 
whose  door 

Dame  Pees  sat  with  a  curteyn  in  hir  hond. 

A  long  description  of  the  temple  and  its 
occupants  (Venus,  Bacchus,  Ceres,  etc.)  follows, 
and  the  poet  then  passes  once  more  into  the 
open  air  where 

...  in  a  launde  ^  upon  a  hille  of  floures 

he  finds  the  "  noble  goddesse  Nature,''  who 
has  sent  for  every  bird  to  come  and  choose 
its  mate  in  honour  of  St.  Valentine.  Upon 
her  hand  she  holds 

*  meadow. 


52       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

A  formel  ^  egle,  of  shap  the  gentileste  ^ 
That  ever  she  among  hir  werkes  fonde. 

Nature  calls  upon  the  royal  eagle  to  make 
first  choice,  and  he, 

With  hed  enclyned  and  with  ful  humble  chere, 

at  once  chooses  the  bird  upon  her  hand. 
Before  the  formel  eagle  has  summoned  up 
sufficient  courage  to  give  her  answer, 

Another  tercel  egle  spak  anoon, 

Of  lower  kinde,  and  seyde,  "  that  shal  not  be ; 

I  love  hir  bet  than  ye  do,  by  seynt  John." 

And  hardly  has  he  finished  when  a  third  eagle 
puts  forward  his  claim.  The  various  birds 
are  called  upon  for  their  advice,  and  after 
a  great  deal  of  chattering  and  confusion, 
Nature  finally  decrees  that  the  choice  is  to 
lie  with  the  formel  eagle  herself.  She 
modestly  begs  for  a  year's  respite  in  which  to 
make  up  her  mind,  and  the  parliament  is 
adjourned. 

But  first  were  chosen  foules  for  to  singe 
As  yeer  by  yere  was  always  hir  usaunce 
To  singe  a  roundel  at  hir  departinge 
To  do  Nature  honour  and  pleasunce, 

^  L  e,  companion  to  another. 
^  of  the  most  graceful  shape. 


CHAUCER'S   WORKS  53 

and  the  whole  ends  with  the  charming 
roundel : — 

Now  welcom  somer  with  thy  sonne  softe. 

The  poem  has  a  freshness  and  tenderness 
which  its  conventional  setting  cannot  conceal, 
and  the  humour  of  the  conversation  among 
the  worm-foul,  water-foul,  and  seed-foul, 
must  have  been  even  more  delightful  than 
it  is  to-day  if — as  has  been  suggested — the 
"fool  cukkow,"  "the  waker  goos,"  "the 
popinjay,  ful  of  delicacy,"  and  the  rest  were 
easily  recognisable  portraits  of  contemporary 
courtiers. 

The  Parlement  of  Foules  was  followed  by 
the  Rous  of  Fame.  Here  again  Chaucer 
makes  use  of  the  conventional  stock-in-trade 
of  medieval  poets. 

We  have  the  dream,  the  strings  of  proper 
names  drawn  from  Ovid  and  Virgil  and  the 
Bible,  the  constant  moralisations,  the  temple 
to  which  the  dreamer  is  guided,  the  use  of 
allegory  and  symbol,  all  of  which  are  common 
property.  The  influence  of  Dante  is  evident, 
and  shows  itself  in  detail  as  well  as  in  the 
conception  of  the  whole.  The  method  of 
beginning  each  book  with  an  invocation,  the 
exact  marking  of  the  date  on  which  the  poem 


54       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

was  begun,  the  steep  rock,  the  description 
of  the  house  of  Rumour,  and  numerous  other 
points  are  borrowed  direct  from  the  Divina 
Commedia,  while  there  is  no  need  to  emphasise 
the  obvious  resemblance  between  the  general 
plan  of  Dante's  great  poem  and  the  Hous  of 
Fame.  Professor  Skeat  even  goes  so  far  as 
to  suggest  that  Lydgate  is  referring  to  the 
Hous  of  Fame  when  he  speaks  of  a  poem  of 
Chaucer's  as  "  Dant  in  English." 

The  poem  is  divided  into  three  books. 
Book  I  opens  with  a  discussion  of  dreams  in 
general,  what  causes  them  and  what  weight 
should  be  attached  to  them: — 


Why  that  is  an  avisioun 
And  this  a  revelacioun. 


This  is  followed  by  an  invocation  to  the  god 
of  sleep,  and  then  comes  the  vision  itself. 
The  poet  falls  asleep  on  the  tenth  day  of 
December,  and  dreams  that  he  is  in  a  temple 
of  glass.  On  a  tablet  on  the  wall  is  engraved 
the  history  of  "  daun  Eneas,"  and  its  recital 
occupies  almost  the  whole  of  the  book.  When 
the  poet  has  "  seyen  al  this  sighte  "  he  passes 
out  of  the  temple  and  finds  himself  in  a 
desert  place: — 


CHAUCER'S  WORKS  66 

Withouten  toun,  or  hous,  or  tree 
Or  bush,  or  gras,  or  cred  ^  lond. 

•  •  •  •  • 

Ne  I  no  maner  creature 
That  is  y-formed  by  nature 
Ne  saw. 

Terrified  by  the  strangeness  and  loneliness 
of  the  place,  he  casts  his  eyes  towards  heaven, 
praying  to  be  saved, 

Fro  f  antom  and  illusion, 

and  as  he  looks  upwards  he  becomes  aware 
of  a  wonderful  eagle  with  feathers  of  gold^ 
flying  towards  him.  Book  II  opens  with 
further  remarks  on  dreams,  and  a  declaration 
that  no  one,  not  even  Isaiah  or  Scipio  or 
Nebuchadnezzar,  ever  had  such  a  dream  as 
this.  The  story  then  continues.  The  eagle 
swoops  down  upon  the  poet  and  catches  him 
up  in  "  his  grimme  pawes  stronge," — 

Me  caryinge  in  his  clawes  starke 
As  lightly  as  I  were  a  larke. 

Dazed  and  astonished,  Chaucer  almost  loses 
consciousness,  till  he  is  recalled  to  life  by  the 
eagle,  with  "  mannes  voice,"  bidding  him 

Awak 

And  be  not  so  a-gast  for  shame  ! 

*  plowed. 


56       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

and  adding  in  a  well-meant  attempt  to  cheer 
him  up, — 

Seynte  Marie ! 

Thou  art  noyous  for  to  carie.^ 

He  is  then  told  that  as  a  reward  for  his  long 
and  faithful  service  of  Cupid- 

Withoute  guerdon  ever  yit, 

Jove  has  decreed  that  he  is  to  be  taken  to 
the  House  of  Fame: — 

To  do  thee  som  disport  and  game, 
In  som  recompensacioun 
Of  labour  and  devocioun. 

In  Fame's  palace  he  will  hear  more  wonders 
in  two  hours  than  there  are  grains  of  com 
in  a  granary,  for  every  sound  made  upon 
earth, — 

Thogh  hit  were  pyped  of  a  mouse, 

rises  up  there,  multiplied  and  increased. 
Having  concluded  a  learned  disquisition  on 
the  properties  of  air,  water,  and  sound — 
which  he  explains,  he  has  kindly  simplified 
in  order  to  bring  it  within  the  grasp  of  a 
"  lewed  2  man  " — the   eagle   bears  the    poet 

*  Thou  art  hard  to  carry.  ^  ignorant. 


CHAUCER'S  WORKS  67 

through  the  stars  and  past  all  manner  of 
"  eyrish  bestes  "  until  they  reach  the  House 
of  Fame.  Here  Chaucer  is  set  upon  his  feet 
— ^much  to  his  relief — and  is  told  to  enter;  he 
is  further  warned  that  every  sound  which 
rises  from  earth  may  be  not  only  heard  but 
seen,  since  it  takes  the  form  of  whatever 
made  it.  Book  III  opens  with  an  invocation 
to  Apollo.  The  poet  then  climbs  the  steep 
rock  of  ice  on  which  the  palace  stands, 
noticing  as  he  passes  the  names  of  famous 
men  cut  in  the  ice  and  rapidly  thawing 
away  in  the  sun.  At  the  summit  is  a  wonder- 
ful castle  of  beryl  stone,  and  all  round  it 
crowd 

.  .  •  alle  maner  of  mmstrales 
And  gestiours,^  that  tellen  tales 
Bothe  of  weping  and  of  game. 
Of  al  that  longeth  unto  Fame. 

Amongst  these  are  all  the  famous  harpers 
and  singers  of  old  days,  and  close  by  stand 

.  .  .  hem  that  maken  blody  soun 
In  trumpe,  beme  ^  and  clarioun. 

A  curiously  carved  gate  gives  admission  to 
the  castle,  and  entering,  Chaucer  finds  a  large 

^  tellers  of  tales  or  gestes.  ^  trumpet 


58        CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

number  of  knights-at-arms  pouring  out  of  a 
great  hall.     The  hall  itself  is 

plated  half  a  f  ote  thikke 
Of  gold  .  .  • 

and  set  with  precious  stones.  Here  the  Lady 
Fame  sits  on  a  throne,  her  feet  resting  on 
earth  and  her  head  touching  the  heavens.  The 
nine  Muses  sing  her  praises  eternally,  and  on 
either  side  of  her  are  pillars  on  which  stand 
the  historian  Josephus  and  the  poets  Statins, 
Homer,  Virgil,  Ovid,  Lucan,  and  Claudian : — 

The  halle  was  al  ful  y-wis, 

Of  hem  that  writen  olde  gestes, 

As  ben  on  trees  rokes  nestes. 

Suddenly  a  great  noise  is  heard,  and  there 
bursts  into  the  hall  a  multitude  of  people  of 
every  race  and  every  condition  come  to  prefer 
their  requests  to  Fame.     Some  beg 

"  That  thou  graunte  us  now  good  fame. 
And  lete  our  werkes  han  that  name ; 
In  ful  recompensacioun 
Of  good  werk,  give  us  good  renoun ;  " 

others  said 

"  Mercy,  lady  dere  ! 
To  telle  certain,  as  hit  is. 
We  han  don  neither  that  ne  this 
But  ydel  al  our  lyf  y-be. 
But,  natheles,  yit  preye  we, 


CHAUCER'S  WORKS  59 

That  we  mowe  han  so  good  a  fame 
And  greet  renoun  and  knowen  name. 
As  they  that  han  don  nobel  gestes  .  .  ." 

others — 

"  But  certeyn  they  were  wonder  fewe," 

cried 

"  Certes,  lady  brighte, 
We  han  don  wel  with  al  our  mighte ; 
But  we  ne  kepen  have  no  fame. 
Hyd  our  werkes  and  our  name. 
For  goddes  love  !  for  certes  we 
Han  certeyn  doon  hit  for  bountee 
And  for  no  maner  other  thing." 

Their  requests  are  granted  or  refused  with 
absolute  capriciousness.  Fame  is  attended 
by  Eolus,  who  according  to  her  direction 
blows  a  black  trumpet  called  Sclaunder 
(Slander)  or  a  golden  clarion  called  Clere 
Laude  (Clear  Praise),  and  these  trumpets  are 
used  as  the  whim  takes  her.  Evil  men  have 
good  fame,  and  good  men  are  slandered,  or 
on  the  other  hand,  both  receive  their  deserts 
without  any  reason  except  Fame's  good 
pleasure.  As  Chaucer  stands  watching  the 
endless  procession,  a  man  approaches  him  and 
asks  if  he  too  has  come  to  receive  fame.  The 
poet  hastily  protests  against  any  such  desire, 
and  explains  that  he  has  come  for — 


60       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Tydinges,  other  this  or  that 
Of  love,  or  swiche  thinges  glade. 

The  stranger  bids  him  follow  him  to  another 
place,  and  leads  him  to 

An  hous,  that  domus  Dedali, 
That  Laborintus  eleped  is. 

It  is  made  of  sticks  and  twigs  and  continu- 
ally spins  romid  and  round  : — 

And  ther-out  com  so  greet  a  noise 
That,  had  it  stonden  upon  Oise, 
Men  mighte  hit  han  herd  esely 
To  Rome,  I  trowe  sikerly. 
•  •  •  • 

And  on  the  roof  men  may  yit  seen 
A  thousand  holes,  and  wel  mo, 
To  leten  wel  the  soun  out  go. 

This  is  the  house  of  Rumour,   to  which 
come  tidings 

Of  werre,  of  pees,  of  manages, 

Of  reste,  of  labour  of  viages,^ 

Of  abood  2  of  deeth,  of  lyfe. 

Of  love,  of  hate,  accorde,  of  stryfe,  etc. 

Here  Chaucer  meets  the  eagle  again,  who 

tells  him  that  he  is  once  more  prepared  to 

become  his  guide,  and  without  more  ado  seizes 

him  "  bitweene  his  toon  "  and  puts  him  in 

*  journeys.  ^  delay. 


CHAUCER'S  WORKS  61 

through  the  window.  The  house  is  full  of  people 
all  busy  whispering  in  each  other's  ears : — 

Whan  oon  had  herd  a  thing,  y-wis. 
He  com  forth  to  another  wight, 
And  gan  him  tellen,  anoon-right, 
The  same  that  to  him  was  told, 
Or  hit  a  furlong- way  was  old. 
But  gan  somwhat  for  to  eche 
To  this  tyding  in  this  speche 
More  than  hit  ever  was. 
And  nat  so  sone  departed  nas 
That  he  fro  him,  that  he  ne  mette 
With  the  thridde ;  and  or  he  lette 
Any  stounde,^  he  tolde  him  als ; 
Were  the  tyding  sooth  or  f als, 
Yit  wolde  he  telle  hit  natheless. 

Out  of  the  windows  fly  lies  and  truths, 
jostling  each  other,  and  Fame  decides  which 
shall  prevail.  Shipmen  and  pilgrims,  par- 
doners and  messengers,  crowd  into  the  house 
with  boxes  crammed  with  marvellous  stories. 
In  one  corner  of  the  great  hall  men  are  telling 
love  stories,  the  poet  goes  to  listen  to  these. 
Here,  just  when  the  climax  appears  to  be  in 
sight,  the  poem  breaks  off  in  the  middle  of  a 
sentence.  Remarkable  as  it  is,  full  of  humour 
and  shrewd  observation,  and  with  signs  of 
Chaucer's  genius  for  narrative,  it  is  not  in 

*  before  he  uttered  a  sound. 


62       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

his  most  characteristic  vein.  Troilus  and 
Criseyde  had  already  given  promise  of  genius 
of  a  very  different  order,  and  it  is  possible 
that  Chaucer  himself  grew  weary  of  the  smooth 
monotony  of  his  own  verse,  and  felt  within 
him  a  growing  impulse  to  produce  something 
more  human  and  more  vivid.  The  Hous  of 
Fame  is  an  almost  perfect  example  of  a  type 
of  poem  whose  popularity  was  to  continue 
undiminished  for  another  century  and  more. 
It  was  imitated  again  and  again,  and  a 
comparison  between  it  and  such  works  as 
Lydgate's  Temple  of  Glas  is  sufficient  to  show 
the  difference  between  genius  and  talent 
even  when  genius  in  working  with  not  wholly 
congenial  material.  If  Chaucer's  reputation 
rested  upon  the  Book  of  the  Duchesse^  the 
Parlement  of  Foules^  the  Hous  of  Fame,  and 
the  Legend  of  Good  Women,  a  few  scholars 
would  know  and  appreciate  his  work,  and 
anthologies  would  probably  make  the  majority 
of  readers  acquainted  with  a  few  carefully- 
chosen  extracts,  but  he  would  have  done  little 
or  nothing  to  break  down  the  literary  con- 
ventions of  his  day.  It  would  need  a  keen 
eye  to  discern  in  these  the  dawn  of  a  new  era, 
without  the  Kght  thrown  upon  them  by 
Troilus  and  Criseyde  and  the  Canterbury  Tales. 


CHAUCER'S  WORKS  63 

The  Legend  of  Good  Women  is  said  by 
Lydgate  to  have  been  written  at  the  Queen's 
request.  The  general  plan  is  taken  from^ 
Boccaccio's  De  Claris  Mulieribus,  and  Chaucer 
also  translates  freely  from  the  Heroides  and 
the  Metamorphoses  of  Ovid.  The  interest  of 
the  poem  lies  in  the  Prologue,  which  con- 
sists of  nearly  six  hundred  lines,  and  of  which 
there  are  two  distinct  versions.  The  poet 
describes  how  in  the  spring  he  goes  out  into 
the  fields  to  worship  the  daisy,  and  he  gives 
a  long  and  poetical  description  of  this  "  em- 
perice  and  flour  of  floures  alle."  That  night 
he  sleeps  in  a  little  arbour  in  his  garden,  and 
in  a  dream  he  sees  the  god  of  love  leading  by 
the  hand  a  queen  clothed  in  green  and  gold 
and  of  surpassing  beauty.  Here  follows  a 
ballad  in  her  praise.  A  rout  of  ladies  now 
appears,  and  they  all  kneel  down  and  sing 
the  praise  of  their  queen.  The  poet  kneels 
among  them,  but  presently  the  god  of  love 
catches  sight  of  him  and  declares  that  he 
is  a  traitor  and  heretic  for  he  has  translated 
the  Romance  of  the  Rose — 

That  is  an  heresye  ageyns  my  lawe, 

and   has   also   written   of   the  fickleness   of 
Cressida — 


64       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Why  noldest  thou  as  wel  han  seyd  goodnesse 
Of  women,  as  thou  hast  seyd  wikkednesse  ? 

The  queen,  who  is  none  other  than  Alcestis, 
intercedes  for  him,  reminding  the  irate  god 
that  the  poet  is  also  the  author  of  the 
Book  of  the  Duchesse^  the  Parlement  of  Foules^ 
the  story  of  Palamon  and  Arcitey  to  say 
nothing  of 

I    "  .  o  many  an  ympne  for  your  haly-dayes."  ^ 

and  the  Lyf  of  St.  Cecyle,  She  therefore  begs 
that  he  may  be  forgiven,  and  in  token  of  true 
contrition  he  shall  spend  the  most  part  of 
his  time 

In  making  of  a  glorious  Legende 

Of  Code  Women,  maidenes  and  wyves. 

That  weren  trewe  in  lovinge  al  hir  lyves. 

The  legends  which  follow  are  the  result  of 
this  command,  and  the  definition  of  virtue 
given  above  accounts  for  the  inclusion  of  such 
"  good  women "  as  Cleopatra  and  Medea. 
The  plan  of  the  poem  necessarily  involved 
sameness  of  treatment.  Chaucer  grew  tired 
of  his  heroines,  and  of  the  twenty  legends 
which  he  seems  to  have  planned,  only  nine 
were  written.   The  stories  of  Cleopatra,  Thisbe, 

^  many  an  hymn  for  your  holy-days. 


CHAUCER'S  WORKS  65 

Dido,  Hypsipyle  and  Medea,  Lucretia, 
Ariadne,  Philomela,  Phyllis,  and  Hyperm- 
nestra,  are  strung  together  somewhat  per- 
functorily. As  the  names  show,  they  are  all 
drawn  from  Latin  authors,  but  with  the  usual 
freedom  of  a  medieval  translator  Chaucer 
does  not  hesitate  to  alter  the  originals  to  suit 
his  purpose.  He  wishes  to  show  the  torments 
and  constancy  of  love's  martyrs,  and  without 
scruple  he  blackens  the  characters  of  Jason 
and  MnesiS  and  Theseus,  in  order  to  bring 
out  the  virtues  of  Medea,  Dido,  and  Ariadne. 
The  legends  show  little  of  the  humour  and 
freshness  of  Chaucer's  other  poems.  Occasion- 
ally a  description  of  the  lover's  passion  recalls 
some  similar  passage  in  Troilus  and  Criseyde^ 
and  the  mere  fact  that  the  interest  centres 
in  emotion  rather  than  action  is  in  itself  of 
importance,  but  Hercules,  in  the  legend  of 
Hypsipyle,  is  a  poor  substitute  for  Pandarus, 
and  the  perpetual  recurrence  of  the  love 
motif  tends  to  weaken  its  effect.  The  two 
versions  of  the  Prologue  show  many  interest- 
ing points  of  difference.  Mention  has  already 
been  made  of  the  supposed  intervention  of 
the  Queen,  through  which  Chaucer  obtained 
permission  to  appoint  a  deputy  to  assist  him 
in  his  office  work.     It  is  supposed  that  this 


66       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

incident  must  have  occurred  after  the  writing 
of  the  first  prologue  and  before  the  writing 
of  the  second,  for  while  the  whole  poem  is 
written  in  Queen  Anne's  honour,  the  second 
prologue  contains  numerous  passages  ex- 
pressing the  poet's  gratitude  and  affection, 
which  are  not  found  in  the  first.     She  is 

....  of  alle  floures  flour, 
Fulfilled  of  al  vertu  and  honour. 

She  is  the  clernesse  and  the  verray  light 
That  in  this  derke  worlde  me  wynt  and  ledeth, 

For  as  the  Sonne  wol  the  fyr  disteyne  ^ 
So  passeth  al  my  lady  sovereyne, 
That  is  so  good,  so  fair,  so  debonaire ; 
I  prey  to  god  that  ever  f alle  hir  f aire  ! 

Another  striking  change  in  the  second  version 
is  the  omission  of  certain  too  explicit  lines  in 
which  the  poet  had  dared  to  set  forth  the 
duties  of  kings  towards  their  subjects.  Part 
of  this  wise  advice  still  remains,  but  evidently 
Chaucer  found  it  dangerous  to  call  Richard's 
attention  to  the  necessity  for  hearing  his 
people's  petitions  and  complaints,  and  the 
later  version  contents  itself  with  a  more 
general  statement  that  kings  should 

*  will  make  fire  dim. 


CHAUCER'S   WORKS  67 

....  nat  be  lyk  tiraunts  of  Lumbardye 
That  han  no  reward  but  at  tirannye. 

It  is  also  noteworthy  that  several  words 
which  appear  in  their  older  form  in  the  first 
version  are.  modernised  in  the  second  {e.  g.  in 
the  first  line  sythes  becomes  tymes),  so  that 
it  is  possible  to  see  the  language  in  actual 
process  of  development. 
/X  -Chaucer's  last  and  greatest  work,  the 
'  Canterbury  Tales,  was  begun  in  1386 — ^though 
as  has  been  shown,  certain  isolated  tales,  or 
rough  sketches  for  tales,  were  already  in 
existence — and  the  composition  continued 
till  1389,  when  it — like  so  many  of  his  other 
poems — was  left  unfinished.  A  number  of 
fugitive  pieces  and  lyrics  also  date  from  about 
this  time,  as  does  the  prose  Treatise  on  the 
Astrolabe  written  for  his  little  son,  Lewis. 

The  popularity  of  Chaucer's  poetry  is 
shown  not  only  by  repeated  references  to 
him  as  master  and  teacher,  made  by  his 
immediate  successors,  but  by  the  entire 
Chaucer  apocrypha  which  soon  sprang  into 
being.  Some  genuine  works  of  his — such  as 
the  Book  of  the  Lion  (this  very  probably 
was  no  more  than  a  translation  of  Machault's 
Le  Dit  du  Lion),  have  been  lost,  but  to  make 
up  for  this  a  number  of  poems  have  been 


68        CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

attributed  to  him,  some  of  which  were  not 
written  until  years  after  his  death.  Sub- 
joined is  a  Ust  of  the  more  important  of  these, 
with  the  names  of  Hie  real  authors  in  cases 
where  scholars  have  succeeded  in  tracing  them. 

The  Testament  of  Love.     Thomas  Usk  (d.  1386). 

La  Belle  Dame  sans  Merci.  Sir  R.  Ros 
(fifteenth  century). 

The  Cuckoo  and  the  Nightingale  (sometimes 
called  The  Book  of  Cupid  God  of  Love). 
Sir  Thomas  Clanvowe. 

The  Flower  and  the  Leaf ;  The  Assembly  of 
Ladies.  Considered  by  some  scholars 
to  be  the  work  of  the  same  hand.  Both 
purport  to  be  written  by  a  woman. 

The  Court  of  Love. 

The  Second  Merchants  Tale,  or  The  Tale  of 
Beryn  (containing  a  preliminary  account 
of  the  Pardoner's  adventures  in  Canter- 
bury). 

The  Complaint  of  the  Black  Knight.     Lydgate. 

The  Tale  of  Gamelyn.  This  poem  is  included 
among  the  MSS.  of  the  Canterbury  Tales. 
Professor  Ten  Brink  suggests  that 
Chaucer  may  have  intended  to  work  it  up 
into  the  Yeoman's  tale. 

The  Letter  of  Cupid,     Occleve. 


CHAPTER  III 

Chaucer's  treatment  of  his  sources 

The  sin  of  plagiary  is  a  development  of 
modern  civilisation.  To  medieval  authors, 
as  to  Elizabethan,  the  interest  of  a  story  lay 
in  the  telling,  and  while  plot  was  of  first-rate 
importance  the  same  plot  could  quite  well  be 
used  indifferently  by  any  number  of  writers. 
Indeed,  they  did  not  hesitate  to  go  even 
further  and  to  form  a  patchwork  of  scraps 
taken  from  different  authors,  so  that  the 
plot  may  be  drawn  from  one  poet,  fragments 
of  the  dialogue  from  another,  and  descriptive 
or  reflective  passages  from  a  third,  and  yet 
the  whole  may  be  justly  reckoned  the  work 
of  the  compiler.  In  the  Parlement  of  Foules, 
for  instance,  Chaucer  takes  the  idea  of  the 
whole  from  a  current  fabliau,  the  first  eighty- 
four  lines  from  Cicero's  Somnium  Scipionis, 
three  distinct  passages  from  Dante,  the  de- 
scription of  the  garden  from  Boccaccio,  and 
lines  95-105  from  Claudian,  and  yet  the 
originality  of  the  whole  is  incontestable.  It 
is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  he  tries  his  hand 


70        CHAUCER  AND   HIS   TIMES 

at  almost  every  form  of  poetry  popular  in  his 
day,  he  writes  romances,  lives  of  the  saints, 
homilies,  allegorical  poems,  topical  satire,  love 
songs,  and  fabliaux,  and  in  every  case  he 
borrows  wherever  he  sees  anything  likely  to 
suit  his  purpose,  he  alters  and  adds  and  omits 
as  he  sees  fit;  yet  it  is  only  necessary  to 
compare  a  story  (that  of  Constance,  for 
instance)  as  told  by  him,  with  the  same  as 
told  by  any  other  poet  of  the  day,  to  see  why 
it  is  impossible  for  a  genius  to  be  a  plagiarist. 
Chaucer's  treatment  of  romance  is  par- 
ticularly characteristic.  As  has  been  said, 
the  medieval  romance  is  the  most  intrinsically 
interesting  literary  development  of  the  period 
from  the  Conquest  to  Chaucer.  Very  roughly 
speaking,  romances  may  be  said — apart  from 
allegorical  works  such  as  the  Romance  of  the 
Rose — to  fall  into  two  classes,  those,  such  as 
Guy  of  Warwick,  or  Sir  Ferumhras,  in  which 
adventure  and  action  form  the  chief  interest, 
\and  those,  such  as  Aucassin  and  Nicolette,  or 
Florice  and  Blanchefleur,  in  which  the  stress 
is  laid  on  emotion.  In  both  cases  the  action 
is  usually  set  in  motion  by  the  hero's  desire 
to  ingratiate  himself  with  his  lady,  but  in  the 
one  he  rides  oft  in  quest  of  renown  that  may 
make  him  worthy  to  aspire  to  her  hand,  and 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS   SOURCES    71 

probably  does  not  see  her  again  for  years ;  in 
the  other,  though  he  may  perform  doughty 
deeds  for  her  sake,  he  may  even  go  so  far  as 
to  refuse  battle  unless  he  may  have  his  sweet 
love,  and  much  space  is  devoted  to  the  de- 
scription of  his  sighs  and  tears.  In  both,  the 
emotion  is  perfectly  simple  and  straight- 
forward. The  knight  wishes  for  the  lady's 
hand  and  fights  or  sulks,  as  the  case  may  be, 
until  he  gets  it,  but  in  the  former  type  there 
is  scope  for  indefinite  digressions  and  inter- 
minable adventures,  while  the  latter,  at  all 
events  in  England,  is  apt  to  be  shorter. 
Occasionally  some  opening  is  given  for  a  more 
complex  treatment  of  character,  but  as  a  rule 
the  opportunity  is  ignored.  Guy,  when  he 
returns  to  Felice  after  many  years  of  adven- 
ture, lives  with  her  only  forty  days.  Then  he 
becomes  pensive  and  downcast,  for  it  occurs 
to  him 

How  he  had  done  many  a  man  wo. 
And  slain  many  a  man  with  his  hand. 
Burnt  and  destroyed  many  a  land. 
And  all  was  for  woman's  love. 
And  not  for  God's  sake  above, 

and  he  leaves  her  for  ever,  that  he  may  give 
himself  to  penance  and  fight  for  the  glory  of 
God.     Here  is  a  fine  opportmiity  for  tragic 


72       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

emotion,  but  although  we  are  told  that  Felice 
thinks  of  killing  herself,  the  whole  episode  is 
so  perfunctorily  related  and  the  purpose  of 
it  is  so  evidently  to  provide  occasion  for  fresh 
adventures  that  it  is  impossible  to  feel  the 
slightest  sympathy  with  either  husband  or 
wife.  In  Sir  Gawayne  and  the  Green  Knight 
the  remorse  of  Gawayne  after  he  has  failed  to 
keep  his  word  is  finely  suggested,  but  the 
whole  poem  is  far  in  advance  of  most  romances 
of  the  period,  and  even  here  the  magic  setting 
rather  detracts  from  the  human  interest.  It 
is  impossible  to  feel  that  it  is  a  fair  fight  when 
one  of  the  combatants  can  be  beheaded 
without  inconvenience  to  himself.  The  magic 
castles  and  enchanted  swords,  the  dragons 
and  sorcerers  of  medieval  romance  have  a 
fascination  of  their  own,  but  it  is  the  fascina- 
tion of  sheer  story -telling,  not  of  character 
study.  The  love  romances  might  naturally 
be  expected  to  show  evidence  of  a  more 
analytical  mind,  but  the  feelings  they  describe 
are  too  obviously  conventional  to  be  very 
convincing,  and  though  there  is  an  undeniable 
charm  in  works  of  this  sort,  there  is  an  equally 
undeniable  sameness.  Their  strength  lies,  not 
in  dramatic  force  of  emotion,  but  in  daintiness 
of  description.     Nicolette  escaping  from  her 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS   SOURCES    73 

turret  chamber,  with  her  skirts  kilted  behind 
and  before  for  fear  of  the  dew,  Florice  borne 
t-o  Blanchefieur's  chamber  in  a  basket  of 
flowers,  are  pictures  which  can  never  lose 
their  freshness,  but  we  grow  weary  of  the 
perpetual  swoons  and  tears  of  every  lover, 
and  the  small  variety  of  characters  introduced, 
the  fact  that  practically  all  belong  to  the  same 
class  and  are  distinguishable  only  as  villains 
or  heroes,  base  enchantresses  or  noble  ladies, 
intensifies  the  monotony.  To  this  must  be 
added  the  dreary  jingle  of  the  verse,  which- 
almost  invariably  consists  of  short,  rhyming 
couplets,  the  lines  constantly  having  to  be 
eked  out  by  expletives  and  meaningless 
monosyllables. 

Chaucer  showed  himself  fully  alive  at  once 
to  the  possibilities  and  the  absurdities  of  the 
romance.  In  the  Knightes  Tale  we  have  an 
excellent  example  of  the  romance  of  adven- 
ture. It  is  based  upon  Boccaccio's  Teseide, 
but  while  the  Teseide  is  an  epic  in  twelve  books, 
the  Knightes  Tale  consists  of  only  2,250  lines. 
The  poet  who  set  out  to  write  a  romance 
seems  as  a  rule  to  have  had  no  sense  either 
of  time  or  of  unity.  The  hero  sets  out  on  his 
travels  and  in  the  first  forest  glade  he  comes 
to,  meets  a  stranger  knight.     The  two  at  once 


74       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

joust.  After  unheard-of  prowess  the  hero 
unhorses  the  stranger  and  unlaces  his  vizor. 
The  strange  knight  no  sooner  recovers  his 
senses  than  he  sets  to  work  to  relate  his  totally 
irrelevant  adventures,  and  the  reader  is  lucky 
if  in  the  course  of  those  adventures  the  still 
more  irrelevant  life-story  of  some  other  knight 
is  not  introduced.  Not  till  some  hundreds 
of  lines  have  been  thus  occupied  do  we  come 
back  to  the  original  hero  who  has  all  this 
while  been  left  in  the  glade.  The  Teseide,  as 
has  been  said,  is  an  epic  rather  than  a  romance, 
and  its  twelve  books  afford  scope  for  such 
episodes  as  the  war  of  Theseus  with  the 
Amazons,  his  marriage  with  Hippolyta,  the 
obsequies  of  those  who  fall  in  the  combat  be- 
tween Palamon  and  Arcite,  etc.,  etc.  Chaucer 
in  turning  epic  into  romance  has  shown  an 
extraordinary  power  of  condensation.  The 
conventional  romance  writer  seems  to  have 
had  no  idea  of  proportion,  no  conception  that 
(  one  incident  could  be  of  more  importance  than 
I  another,  or  that  it  could  be  necessary  to  slur 
I  over  one  episode  and  concentrate  on  another. 
In  the  i^mg^^^^fe^jCh^ceiL^hows  the 
instinct  of  the  true  story-teller.  The  account 
of  tFe  war  with  therSmazons  and  Theseus' 
marriage — which  occupies  two  books  of  the 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS   SOURCES    75 

Teseide — is  reduced  to  twelve  lines,  which 
briefly  tell  us  the  bare  facts.  Theseus  and 
Hippolyta  are  kept  in  the  background  through- 
out that  the  figures  of  Palamon,  Arcite,  and 
Emily  may  stand  out  the  more  clearly.  The 
story  moves  steadily  and  rapidly,  without 
a  single  digression.  Occasionally,  indeed,  a 
little  more  explanation  would  be  welcome. 
Who,  for  instance,  was  the  friend  by  whose 
aid  Palamon  broke  prison  after  seven  weary 
years?  Was  it  the  gaoler's  daughter,  as  the 
Two  Noble  Kinsmen  would  have  us  believe, 
or  did  his  servant  bribe  a  physician  to  help 
him,  as  the  Teseide  relates  ?  Chaucer  merely 
whets  our  curiosity  by  stating  that  he  drugged 
the  gaoler,  and  hurries  on  to  describe  his 
meeting  with  Arcite.  It  is  this  very  speed,  i 
this  close-knitting  of  the  story,  which  marks  f 
it  out  from  other  poems  of  the  kind.  The  ! 
characterisation  is  slight.  Palamon  and  Arcite  * 
might  well  be,  not  cousins  but  twins,  so 
closely  do  they  resemble  each  other.  Emily, 
sweet  and  gracious  as  she  is,  scarcely  seems 
more  than  a  fair  vision  of  girlhood.  Only  now 
and  then,  as  in  the  thumb-nail  sketch  of  the 
crowd  watching  the  knights  assemble  for  the 
tourney,  or  in  some  sudden  aside,  such  as  his 
comment  on  Arcite's  death — 


76        CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

His  spirit  chaunged  hous,  and  wente  ther, 
As  I  cam  never,  I  can  nat  tellen  wher — 

do  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  Chaucer's  shrewd 
J  observation  and  dry  humour.     He  is  learning 
how  to  tell  a  tale,  and  for  the  moment  his 
interest  lies  in  the  telling. 

In  Troilus  and  Criseyde^  his  method  is  very 
different.  Here  he  is  dealing  with  a  love 
romance,  and  he  does  not  hesitate  to  dwell 
at  length  upon  the  sufferings  and  emotions 
of  his  hero  and  heroine.  About  a  third  of  the 
whole  work  is  actual  paraphrase  or  translation 
of  Boccaccio's  Filostrato  :  Book  IV  contains 
a  lengthy  extract  from  Boethius,  and  certain 
passages  are  drawn  from  Guido  delle  Colonne, 
but  the  Filostrato  forms  the  basis  of  the  whole. 
This  being  so,  the  first  thing  we  notice  is  that 
whereas  in  the  Knightes  Tale  Chaucer  has  very 
considerably  cut  down  his  original,  here  he 
has  enlarged  it,  for  the  5,704  lines  of  Boccaccio's 
poem  have  become  8,329  in  the  English  version. 
Further,  he  has  taken  considerable  liberties 
with  the  characters  themselves.  Troilus  is  in 
many  respects  a  conventional  enough  hero. 
He  falls  in  love  with  Cressida  at  first  sight 
and  at  once  despairs  of  winning  her.  Hand- 
some, brave,  and  resolute,  he  is  well  fitted  to 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS   SOURCES    77 

gain  the  love  of  any  woman,  but  such  is  his 
modesty  that  he  is  incapable  of  helping  him- 
self and  can  do  nothing  more  to  the  purpose 
than  sit  on  his  bed  and  groan.  The  unneces- 
sary mystery  made  by  the  lovers,  the  endless 
difficulties  which  they  put  in  their  own  way, 
are  quite  in  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the  age, 
though  even  here  Chaucer  shows  a  skill  in 
characterisation  which  almost  makes  us  forget 
to  be  impatient  with  his  hero's  helplessness. 
Cressida,  while  she  too  has  much  in  common 
with  the  conventional  heroine  of  romance, 
has  much  that  is  peculiarly  her  own.  She  is 
beautiful  and  tender  and  clinging,  as  a  heroine 
should  be,  but  her  shallow  little  character  has 
an  individuality  of  its  own.  It  will  be  treated 
more  fully  in  a  later  chapter,  here  it  is  sufficient 
to  say  that  Chaucer  transforms  the  mature 
woman  of  Boccaccio's  poem  into  a  timid  girl, 
whose  youth  and  inexperience  appeal  to  our 
pity  and  make  it  impossible  to  judge  her 
harshly.  But  the  most  important  and  char- 
acteristic change  which  Chaucer  makes  in  the 
story  is  in  the  character  of  Pandarus.  Instead 
of  the  gay  young  cousin  of  Troilus,  he  gives 
us  the  vulgar,  gossiping,  good-natured  old 
uncle  of  Cressida,  an  utterly  unimaginative 
and  prosaic  person  who  plays  with  the  fires 


78        CHAUCER  AND  HIS   TIMES 

of  passion  as  ignorantly  and  light-heartedly 
as  the  Nurse  in  Romeo  and  Juliet.  Not  only 
is  the  character  of  Pandarus  of  interest  in 
itself  but  its  creation  and  its  introduction 
into  a  poem  of  this  type  marks  a  new  develop- 
ment in  literature — the  study  of  the  common- 
place. Hitherto,  though  some  rare  flash  of 
humour  might  for  an  instant  lighten  the  pages 
of  the  love  romance  and  give  us  such  an 
episode  as  that  of  the  herd-boy  in  Aucassin 
and  Nicolette,  it  was  but  a  flash.  The 
interest  was  concentrated  ii  the  hero  and 
heroine,  and  though  some  faithful  servant  or 
lady-in-waiting  might  assist  their  lovers,  it 
would  have  been  regarded  as  undignified  in 
the  extreme  to  give  prominence  to  such  a 
character.  Chaucer  flings  dignity  to  the 
winds.  What  he  cares  for  is  truth  to  life, 
and  already  he  has  made  the  great  discovery 
that  certain  persons  are  not  told  off  by  nature 
to  be  unhappy  and  certain  others  to  be 
amusing,  but  that  a  perfectly  common-place 
and  ordinary  individual  may  play  a  part  in 
tragedy  without  even  realising  what  tragedy 
is.  He  studies  a  man,  not  because  he  is 
unusual,  but  just  because  he  is  the  kind  of 
person  to  be  met  with  any  day,  and  by  using 
Pandarus  as  a  foil  he  prevents  the  high-flown 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS   SOURCES    79 

emotion  of  the  lovers  from  becoming  absurd 
or  monotonous. 

Chaucer  evidently  realised  to  the  full  the 
attractiveness  and  the  dramatic  possibilities 
of  this  form  of  literature,  but  at  the  same  time 
his  eyes  were  open  to  its  shortcomings.  In 
the  Squieres  Tale  we  have  a  typical  romance 
in  which  love,  magic,  and  adventure  are  all 
blended  together.  It  has  the  true  medieval 
air  of  having  all  eternity  in  which  to  tell  its 
story.  It  begins  with  an  account  of  King 
Cambinskan,  his  two  sons  Algarsif  and 
Cambalo,  and  his  daughter  Canace,  and  the 
coming  of  the  magic  gifts:;;-the  steed  of  brass 
which  will  carry  its  rider  whilliersoever  he 
desires,  the  mirror  which  shows  if  any  adver- 
sity is  about  to  befall  its  owner,  the  ring  which 
enables  its  wearer  to  understand  the  speech 
of  the  birds  and  also  gives  knowledge  of  the 
healing  properties  of  all  herbs,  and  the  sword 
whose  edge  will  cut  through  any  armour  and 
the  flat  of  whose  blade  will  cure  the  wound 
so  made.  Any  one  of  these  would  in  itself 
be  sufficient  to  furnish  forth  a  tale,  and  when 
we  find  them  heaped  together  with  so  lavish 
a  hand  at  the  very  beginning,  we  know  what 
to  expect.  Three  hundred  and  four  of  the 
squire's    361    lines    are    occupied    with    the 


80       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

apparently  irrelevant  story  of  the  love-lorn 
falcon  and  the  faithless  tercelet.  Even  this 
is  not  ended.  Canace  uses  her  knowledge  of 
simples  for  the  poor  hawk's  benefit,  and  cures 
its  wounds  and  swears  to  redress  its  wrongs ; 
but  having  got  thus  far  the  narrator  draws 
breath  and  then  plunges  into  a  list  of  further 
episodes  with  which  he  intends  to  deal : — 

Thus  lete  I  Canace  hir  hauk  keping; 
I  wol  na-more  as  now  speke  of  hir  ring. 
Til  it  come  eft  to  purpos  for  to  seyn 
How  that  this  f aucon  gat  hir  love  ageyn 
Repentant,  as  the  storie  telleth  us. 

But  hennes-forth  I  wol  my  proces  holde 
To  speke  of  aventures  and  of  batailles, 
That  never  yet  was  herd  so  grete  mervailles. 
First  wol  I  telle  yow  of  Cambinskan, 
That  in  his  tyme  many  a  citee  wan ; 
And  after  wol  I  speke  of  Algarsyf, 
How  that  he  wan  Theodora  to  his  wyf. 
For  whom  ful  ofte  in  greet  peril  he  was, 
Ne  hadde  he  ben  holpen  by  the  steed  of  bras ; 
And  after  wol  I  speke  of  Cambalo 
That  f aught  in  listes  with  the  brethren  two 
For  Canacee,  er  that  he  mighte  hir  winne, 
And  ther  I  lefte  I  wol  ageyn  beginne. 

It  is  here  that  the  Franklin  breaks  in,  and 
in  the  most  courteous  and  charming  manner 
succeeds  in  checking  the  story,  of  which  the 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS  SOURCES    81 

pilgrims  have  evidently  had  as  much  as  they 
want,  and  in  skilfully  leading  up  to  his  own 
tale.  Nothing  could  give  a  more  vivid  im- 
pression of  youth  and  exuberance  than  the 
Squire's  naive  enjoyment  of  the  marvellous 
adventures  which  he  describes :  the  story  is 
exactly  suited  to  the  teller,  and  his  sublime 
unconsciousness  of  the  fact  that  any  one  else 
can  possibly  find  it  long  or  quail  before  the 
prospect  of  a  tale  which  bids  fair  to  last  all 
the  way  to  Canterbury  and  back,  is  just  what 
we  should  expect  of  this 

lusty  bacheler 

With  lokkes  crulle,^  as  they  were  leyd  in  presse. 
Of  twenty  yeer  of  age  he  was,  I  gesse 
•  ••••• 

Embrouded  ^  was  he,  as  it  were  a  mede 
Al  ful.of  fresshe  floures,  whyte  and  rede. 
Singinge  he  was,  or  fioytinge  ^  al  the  day; 
He  was  as  fresh  as  is  the  month  of  May. 

No  wonder  he  tells  of  enchanted  steeds  and 
magic  rings,  of  joust  and  tourney.  And  in 
showing  the  charm  and  youthfulness  of  the 
Squire,  Chaucer  also  contrives  to  show  us  the 
charm,  and  we  might  almost  add  the  youth- 
fulness,  of  the  popular  romance.  It  is  difficult 
to  believe  that  the  Squieres  Tale  was  left  un- 

1  curled  locks.      ^  embroidered.       ^  playing  the  flute. 
1* 


82       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

finished  by  chance.  The  manner  in  which  it 
is  cut  short  not  only  Hghts  up  the  characters 
of  the  Squire  and  the  FrankUn  in  a  manner 
eminently  characteristic  of  Chaucer,  but  also 
gently  satirises  the  long-windedness  and 
absurdity  of  the  romance-writers;  and  that 
Chaucer  was  keenly  alive  to  their  faults  is 
shown  by  the  rollicking  burlesque  of  Sir 
Thopas.  The  Squieres  Tale  forms,  as  it  were, 
a  half-way  house  between  the  serious  treat- 
ment of  romance  in  Troilus  and  Criseyde  and 
the  Knightes  Tale,  and  the  pure  parody  of 
Chaucer's  own  "  tale  of  mirthe." 

Sir  Thopas  parodies  not  only  the  matter 
but  the  manner  of  the  romance  writers.  It 
out-Herods  Herod  in  the  intolerable  jingle 
of  its  verse  and  the  absurdity  of  its  extra 
syllables,  while  the  adventures  of  Sir  Thopas 
and  the  fairy  queen  prove  too  much  even  for 
the  pilgrims,  ready  as  they  are  to  be  interested 
in  a  story  of  any  kind. 

Sir  Thopas  wex  a  doghty  swayn, 
Whyt  was  his  face  as  payndemayn  ^ 

His  lippes  red  as  rose ; 
His  rode  ^  is  lyk  scarlet  in  grayn, 
And  I  you  telle  in  good  certayn 

He  hadde  a  semely  nose, 

^  fine  flour.  *  complexion. 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS   SOURCES    83 

drones  the  poet,  and  no  wonder  after  bearing 
a  couple  of  hundred  lines,  the  host  breaks  in 
with, 

"  No  more  of  this,  for  goddes  dignitee 

Myn  eres  aken  of  thy  drasty  ^  speche; 
Now  swiche  a  rym  the  devel  I  biteche  ! 
This  may  wel  be  rym  dogerel,"  quod  he. 

Considerations  of  space  make  it  impossible 
to  take  in  detail  Chaucer's  treatment  of  all 
his  various  sources.  Like  Shakespeare,  he 
rarely  troubles  to  invent  a  plot  for  himself, 
and  Professor  Skeat's  table  shows  but  one 
of  all  the  Canterbury  Tales  for  which  no 
original  has  yet  been  found.  In  the  brief 
consideration  of  his  treatment  of  romance  as 
a  whole  two  points  stand  out  conspicuously : 
in  the  first  place  his  skill  in  simple  narration, 
and  in  the  second  his  interest  in  action  as 
revealing  character  rather  than  for  its  own 
sake.  In  the  Canterbury  Tales  he  shows 
greater  certainty  in  the  delineation  of  char- 
acter, greater  readiness  to  trust  to  his  readers' 
discrimination.  Instead  of  describing  char- 
acters at  length,  he  gives  us  an  occasional 
comment,  or  leaves  us  to  see  for  ourselves  the 

^  worthless.  \ 


84        CHAUCER  AND  HIS   TIMES 

meaning  of  some  significant  action,  and  the 
consequence  is  that  every  addition  or  omission 

.  that  he  makeis  is  worthy  of  careful  attention. 

■!  Three  typical  instances  may  be  taken  as 
illustrating  his  method:  the  Man  of  Lawes 
Tale,  the  Nonne  Preestes  Tale,  and  the 
story  of  Count  Hugo  of  Pisa  in  the  Monkes 
Tale. 

The  story  of  Constance  is  taken  from  the 
Anglo-Norman  chronicle  of  Nicholas  Trivet. 
Trivet's  version,  which  is  in  prose,  is  con- 
siderably longer  than  Chaucer's.  It  begins, 
undramatically,  by  speaking  of  the  virtue 
and  prosperity  of  Maurice,  "  a  very  gracious 
youth,  and  wondrously  strong  for  his  age, 
and  wise  and  sharp  of  wit.  According  to  the 
history  of  the  Saxons  aforesaid,  he  was  the 
son  of  Constance,  the  daughter  of  Tiberius, 
by  a  king  of  the  Saxons,  Alle,"^  —  thus 
doing  away  with  all  suspense  as  to  Constance's 
fate,  and  showing  at  the  outset  that  the  story 
is  to  have  a  happy  ending.  The  chronicle 
then  goes  on  to  lay  stress  on  the  learning  of 
the  princess,  who  was  instructed  not  only  in 
the  Christian  faith  but  also  in  the  seven 
sciences,   logic,   physics,    morals,    astronomy, 

^  The  translations  are  taken  from  Chaucer's  Originals 
and  Analogues,  published  by  the  Chaucer  Society. 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS  SOURCES    85 

geometry,  music,  and  perspective,^  and  in 
various  tongues.  When  she  was  thirteen, 
there  came  to  her  father's  court  certain 
Saracen  merchants,  and  Constance,  hearing 
of  the  rich  merchandise  they  had  brought, 
went  down  to  inspect  it  and  to  question  them 
concerning  their  land  and  creed.  Finding 
that  they  were  heathen,  she  at  once  proceeded 
to  convert  them,  and  such  was  her  eloquence 
that  before  returning  to  their  own  land,  they 
were  all  baptised.  Nor  were  they  content 
with  this,  for  on  their  arrival  in  Saracenland, 
they  began  to  preach  the  new  doctrine.  The 
Sultan  sent  for  them,  that  his  wise  men  might 
rebuke  them,  but  they  refuted  the  arguments 
of  the  heathen,  and  then  "  began  to  praise 
the  maid  Constance,  who  had  converted  and 
fully  instructed  them,  for  very  high  and  noble 
wit  and  wisdom,  and  great  marvellous  beauty, 
and  gentleness,  and  nobleness  of  blood."  So 
deep  an  impression  did  they  make  on  their 
lord  that  he  was  "  greatly  overcome  with  love 
for  the  maiden"  and  promptly  dispatched  these 
same  merchants,  and  with  them  a  heathen 
Admiral,  to  demand  her  in  marriage.  Tiberius 
sent  back  the  messengers?  with  great  honour, 

1  This  unusual  list  of  the  seven  sciences  is  that  given 
by  Trivet. 


86       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

giving  his  consent  if  his  prospective  son-in-law 
on  his  part  would  agree  to  become  a  Christian. 
"  And  the  Admiral,  before  the  Sultan  and  all 
his 'Council,  vowed  himself  to  the  Christian 
faith,  if  the  Sultan  should  consent."  The 
impatient  lover  soon  agreed,  and  Constance 
accordingly  set  sail  for  Saracenland  under 
escort  of  "  a  cardinal  bishop,  and  a  cardinal 
priest,  with  a  great  number  of  clergy,  and  a 
senator  of  Rome,  with  noble  chivalry  and 
great  and  rich  array,  and  with  a  great  number 
of  Christians  who  went  thither,  some  on 
pilgrimage,  others  to  take  possession  of 
Jerusalem."  The  Sultan's  mother,  seeing  her 
religion  in  danger,  determined  to  rid  the  land 
of  these  invaders.  Having  made  a  covenant 
with  seven  hundred  Saracens,  who  swore  to 
aid  her,  she  invited  all  the  Christians  to  a 
great  feast,  professing  that  she  herself  desired 
to  embrace  their  religion.  At  a  given  signal 
the  seven  hundred  Saracens  fell  upon  the 
unarmed  guests,  and  of  the  whole  number 
there  escaped  but  three  young  men  and 
Constance  herself.  The  Sultan,  the  Admiral, 
and  the  other  converts  were  involved  in  the 
general  massacre.  The  three  young  men  fled 
to  Rome,  where  they  told  the  Emperor  that 
his    daughter   had   perished   with   the   rest. 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS   SOURCES    87 

Constance,  having  refused  to  renounce  her 
faith,  "  for  no  fair  promise  of  wealth  or 
honour,  nor  for  any  threat  of  punishment  or 
death,"  is  set  adrift  in  an  open  boat,  with 
provision  enough  to  last  her  for  three  years, 
and  also  with  all  the  treasure  which  she  had 
brought  with  her  as  a  bride.  For  three  whole 
years  she  drifts  about  on  the  great  ocean. 
''  Then,  in  the  eighth  month  of  the  fourth 
year,  God  who  steered  the  ship  of  the  holy 
man  Noah  in  the  great  flood,  sent  a  favourable 
wind,  and  drove  the  ship  to  England,  under  a 
castle  in  the  kingdom  of  Northumberland, 
near  Humber."  Elda,  the  warden  of  the 
castle,  goes  down  to  ask  her  of  her  condition. 
"  And  she  answered  him  in  Saxon  ...  as 
one  w^ho  was  learned  in  divers  languages,  as 
is  aforesaid."  The  good  warden  receives  her 
hospitably,  and  his  wife  Hermingild  becomes 
so  enamoured  of  the  maiden  "  that  nothing 
could  happen  to  her  that  she  would  not  do 
according  to  her  will."  Then  follows  the 
conversion  of  Hermingild  and  Elda  owing  to 
a  miracle  wrought  by  Constance  upon  a  blind 
man.  Elda  tells  Alle,  King  of  Northumber- 
land, of  the  wonderful  maiden  at  his  castle, 
and  Alle  is  about  to  visit  her  when  dire  distress 
falls  upon  the  three  friends.     A  felon  knight. 


88       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

to  whose  suit  Constance  has  turned  a  deaf  ear, 
murders  Hermingild  and  contrives  that  sus- 
picion shall  fall  upon  Constance.  Elda  cannot 
believe  her  capable  of  such  treachery,  where- 
upon the  accuser  swears  upon  the  gospels  and 
upon  his  baptism,  "  which  he  had  already 
lately  received, "that  Constance  is  the  criminal. 
Scarcely  had  he  ended  the  word,  when  a 
closed  hand,  like  a  man's  fist,  appeared  before 
Elda  and  all  who  were  present,  and  smote 
such  a  blow  on  the  nape  of  the  felon's  neck, 
that  both  his  eyes  flew  out  of  his  head,  and 
his  teeth  out  of  his  mouth ;  and  the  felon  fell 
smitten  down  to  the  earth.  And  thereupon 
a  voice  said  in  the  hearing  of  all,  "  Against 
Mother  Church  thou  wert  laying  a  scandal : 
this  hast  thou  done,  and  I  have  held  my 
peace."  On  Alle's  arrival  the  felon  is  con- 
demned to  death,  and  so  struck  is  the  king 
by  what  has  passed  that  he  is  himself  bap- 
tised, and  then  marries  Constance.  Six 
months  later  he  is  called  away  by  a  border 
raid.  During  his  absence  the  queen  is  de- 
livered of  a  fair  boy,  and  letters  are  sent 
to  the  king  to  tell  him  the  good  news.  Once 
again,  however,  Constance  is  unfortunate 
enough  to  possess  a  mother-in-law  who  hates 
her :  "  For  she  had  great  disdain  that  King 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS  SOURCES    89 

Alle  had,  for  the  love  of  a  strange  woman 
whose  Hneage  was  unknown  to  him,  forsaken 
his  former  rehgion."  The  messenger  rests  at 
her  house  at  Knaresborough,  and  the  queen- 
mother  gives  him  an  evil  drink,  and  then 
alters  his  letters,  telling  King  Alle  that  his 
wife  is  an  evil  spirit  in  the  form  of  a  woman, 
"  Whereto  witnesseth  the  child  born  of  her, 
which  resembles  not  a  human  form,  but  a 
cursed  form  hideous  and  doleful."  With  rare 
justice  and  self-restraint  Alle  writes  back  to 
his  lords,  bidding  them  take  no  steps  against 
the  queen  or  her  child  until  he  himself  can 
return  and  inquire  into  the  matter.  Again 
the  foolish  messenger  stays  the  night  at 
Knaresborough,  and  again  the  queen-mother 
tampers  with  the  letters.  Under  the  king's 
seal  she  writes  to  the  lords  and  bids  them 
set  Constance  and  her  child  adrift  in  an  open 
boat,  that  she  may  leave  the  land  in  like 
manner  that  she  came  to  it.  The  king's  word 
is  obeyed,  and  amidst  the  lamentations  and 
tears  of  all  the  people  Constance  is  put  on 
board  a  ship  "  without  sail  or  oar  or  any 
device."  The  ship  is  driven  to  the  coast  of 
Spain,  where  a  certain  heathen  Admiral 
befriends  her.  His  seneschal,  a  renegade 
knight  named  Thelous,  persuades  Constance 


90       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

that  he  wishes  to  repent  of  his  sins  and  return 
to  the  Christian  faith,  and  prays  her  to  take 
him  with  her,  that  he  may  come  to  a  land  of 
Christians.  Once  alone  with  her,  he  reveals 
his  true  purpose.  Constance  begs  him  to 
look  out  and  see  if  there  is  no  land  in  sight, 
and  then  comes  privily  behind  his  back  and 
thrusts  him  into  the  sea.  Meanwhile  Alle, 
having  discovered  his  mother's  treachery, 
puts  her  to  death,  and  vows  never  to  marry 
again.  Constance  is  eventually  rescued  by 
mariners  and  brought  to  Rome.  She  learns 
that  her  father  has  avenged  her  supposed 
death  upon  the  Saracens,  but  instead  of 
revealing  her  identity  she  lives  for  twelve 
years  with  a  noble  couple  called  Arsemius  and 
Helen.  At  the  end  of  that  time  Alle  visits 
Rome,  and  Constance's  son,  Maurice,  is  invited 
to  be  present  at  the  feast  in  his  honour. 
Constance  bids  the  youth  make  a  point  of 
serving  the  King  of  England.  Alle,  struck 
by  Maurice's  likeness  to  Constance,  inquires 
what  his  origin  may  be, 'and  by  this ^ means 
recovers  his  wife  and  child.  Tiberius  proclaims 
Maurice '  his  heir  and  "  companion  in  the 
Empire."  Constance  returns  to  England 
with  her  husband,  but  six  months  later, 
hearing  that  her  father  is  dying,  she  comes 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS  SOURCES    91 

back  to  Rome,  where  she  herself  dies  a  year 
later. 

The  story  is  worth  telling  in  some  detail 
because  it  shows  how  closely  Chaucer  keeps 
to  his  original  when  it  suits  his  purpose.  The 
Man  of  Lawe  does  not  alter  a  single  point  of 
any  importance.  He  makes  no  attempt  to 
soften  down  the  improbabilities  of  the  story 
or  reduce  the  miraculous  element.  After  all, 
he  is  himself  going  on  a  pilgrimage  to  the 
wonder-working  shrine  of  St.  Thomas  a 
Becket,  and  shrewd  man  of  the  world  as  he 
is,  there  is  nothing  in  the  history  of  Constance 
to  strain  his  credulity.  But  whereas  in  Trivet 
the  characters  are  mere  lay  figures  set  up  to 
illustrate  the  power  of  Christianity  and  the 
evil  fate  which  befalls  the  opponents  of  Mother 
Church,  in  Chaucer  they  have  an  individuality 
of  their  own.  Instead  of  alienating  our  sym- 
pathy at  the  outset  by  insisting  on  the 
learning  and  missionary  enterprise  of  a  child 
of  thirteen,  Chaucer  omits  all  this  and  follows 
the  more  natural  path  of  making  the  foreign 
chapmen  so  struck  by  the  good  report  which 
they  hear  of  the  emperor's  daughter,  that 
having  once  seen  her,  and  proved  her  beauty 
for  themselves,  when  after  their  custom  they 
go  to  tell  the  Soldan  what  wonders  they  have 


92       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

met  with  on  their  travels,  they  in  turn  inflame 
his  imagination  by  their  description.  The 
brief  dialogue  between  Constance  and  her 
father,  when  the  marriage  has  been  arranged, 
is  Chaucer's  own  interpolation,  and  its  note 
of  despair  prepares  us  for  what  is  to  follow : — 

Alias  !  unto  the  Barbre  nacioun  ^ 
I  moste  anon,  sin  that  it  is  your  wille ; 
But  Crist,  that  starf  ^  for  our  redempcioun 
So  yeve  me  grace  his  hestes  ^  to  fulfille ; 
I,  wrecche  womman,  no  f ors  though  I  spille  * 
Wommen  are  born  to  thraldom  and  penance. 
And  to  ben  under  mannes  governance. 

Here  we  have  no  priggish  and  self-righteous 
virgin  setting  forth  with  smug  self-satisfaction 
to  convert  Saracenland,  but  a  lonely,  timid 
girl,  whose  heart  misgives  her  at  the  thought 
of  leaving  her  parents  and  going  to  meet  an 
unknown  husband.  Equally  vivid  and  effect- 
ive is  Chaucer's  picture  of  the  Soldan's  wicked 
mother,  who  not  only  professes  readiness  to 
accept  baptism  herself  but  advises  her  fellow- 
conspirators  to  do  the  same  on  the  ground — 

Cold  water  shal  not  greve  us  but  a  lyte,^ 

*  barbarous  nation.  2  ^q^^ 

3  commands.  *  no  matter  if  I  am  lost 

^  grieve  us  but  a  little. 


TREATMENT   OF  HIS   SOURCES    93 

and  adds  with  savage  humour  that  by  the 
time  she  has  done  with  her  son's  wife, 

She  shal  have  nede  to  wasshe  awey  the  rede, 
Thogh  she  a  font-ful  water  with  hir  lede. 

The  marriage  festivities  are  passed  over 
Hghtly,  and  then  comes  a  characteristic  inter- 
polation which  Chaucer  borrows  from  quite  a 
different  source,  i,  e.  from  Innocent  Ill's  De 
Miseria  Humance  Conditionis : — 

O  sodeyn  wo !  that  ever  art  successour 
To  worldly  blisse,  spreynd  ^  with  bitternesse ; 
Th'ende  of  the  joye  of  our  worldly  labour; 
Wo  occupieth  the  fyn  of  our  gladnesse.^ 
Herke  this  conseil  for  thy  sikernesse. 
Upon  thy  gladde  day  have  in  thy  minde 
The  unwar  wo  or  harm  that  comth  behinde 

Then  come  a  few  brief  words  describing 
the  massacre  and  Constance's  unhappy  fate, 
followed  by  the  beautiful  prayer  of  Constance 
when  she  finds  herself  alone  on  "  the  salte  see," 
of  which  no  trace  at  all  is  to  be  found  in  Trivet. 
Here  the  poet  breaks  off  to  discuss  the 
miraculous  element  in  the  story.  Nothings 
is  more  characteristic  of  Chaucer  than  this 
haHL5rp^sing""t^^^ 
question   raised  by  what  he  is  relating — it 

1  Bprmkled  *  All  our  joy  ends  in  woo. 


94        CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

is  even  more  conspicuously  evident  in  the 
Nonne  Preestes  Tale  than  it  is  here,  where 
such  a  discussion  is  in  keeping  with jthe  sjdrit 
of  the  poem,  and"  where  he  shows  himself 
content  to  take  the  siinple„e;^planation  of 
reiigionT 

The  episode  of  Elda  and  Hermingild  is 
given  very  simply  and  shortly,  Elda's  name 
not  being  mentioned.  ,  Then  comes  the  false 
accusation  brought  against  Constance  by  the 
treacherous  knight,  and  here  we  see  Chaucer's 
power  of  painting  a  dramatic  situation  in  a 
few  words.  He  tells  us  how  Constance  is 
brought  before  the  king  and  gives  her  brief 
prayer  to  the  God  "  that  savedest  Susanne," 
and  then  with  a  sudden  vivid  simile  drives 
home  to  us  her  agony  of  suspense : — 

Have  ye  nat  seyn  som  tyme  a  pale  face 
Among  a  prees,  of  him  that  hath  be  lad 
Toward  his  deeth,  where-as  him  gat  no  grace. 
And  swich  a  colour  in  his  face  hath  had, 
Men  mighte  knowe  his  face,  that  was  bestad, 
Amonges  alle  faces  in  that  route  : 
So  stant  Custance,  and  loketh  hir  aboute. 

Her  marriage  with  Alle,  Chaucer  dismisses 
even  more  hastily  than  her  marriage  with  the 
Soldan : — 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS  SOURCES    95 

Me  list  nat  of  the  chaf  nor  of  the  stree 
Maken  so  long  a  tale  as  of  the  com. 
What  sholde  I  tellen  of  the  royaltee 
At  mariage,  or  which  cours  gooth  biforn 
Who  bloweth  in  a  trompe  or  in  an  horn  ? 
The  fruit  of  every  tale  is  for  to  seye, 
They    ete,   and  drinke,   and  daunce,   and 
singe,  and  pleye. 

The  mishap  of  the  messenger  causes  him  to 
break  out  into  an  invective  against  drunken- 
ness, and  then  follows  one  of  the  most  won- 
derful passages  in  the  whole  poem,  that  in 
which  he  describes  Constance  going  down  to 
the  boat  "  with  deedly  pale  face,"  her  baby 
weeping  in  her  arms.  Chaucer's  love  of 
children  manifests  itself  again  and  again  in 
his  poems.     The  tenderness  of  the  mother's 

"  Pees  litel  sone,  I  wol  do  thee  non  harm  " 

as  she  binds  her  kerchief  round  the  child's 
eyes  is  far  more  moving  in  its  simplicity  than 
the  most  harrowing  description  could  be. 
And  here  again,  as  Constance  lulls  the  baby 
in  her  arms,  Chaucer  puts  into  her  mouth  a 
beautifully  simple  and  touching  prayer  to  the 
Virgin  Mother : — 

**  Thou  sawe  thy  child  y-slayn  bifor  thy  yen, 
And  yet  now  liveth  my  litel  child,  parf ay  ! 
Now,  lady  bright,  to  whom  alle  woful  cryen. 


96       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Thou   glorie   of  wommanhede,   thou   faire 

may,i 
Thou  haven  of  refut,  brighte  sterre  of  day, 
Rewe  on  ^  my  child,  that  of  thy  gentilesse 
Rewest  on  every  rewful  ^  in  distressed* 

With  these  words  on  her  Kps  she  turns  to 
Elda  and  holding  up  the  child  cries 

"  And  if  thou  darst  not  saven  him  for  blame. 
So  kis  him  ones  in  his  fadres  name," 

and  without  further  complaint 

She  blesseth  hir ;  and  in-to  ship  she  wente. 

The  whole  passage  has  a  breathing  human 
passion  in' it  of  which  Trivet's  chronicle  knows 
nothing.  We  forget  the  absurdity  of  the 
story,  the  impossible  repetition  of  an  impossible 
situation,  and  see  only  a  cruelly  wronged  wife 
and  mother  meeting  her  fate  with  simple 
dignity  and  faith. 

Trivet  gives  us  lurid  details  concerning  the 
vengeance  that  falls  on  Alle's  mother.  Chau- 
cer, who  never  takes  pleasure  in  horrors,  re- 
marks briefly  that  he  "  his  moder  slow,"  and 
hastens  on  to  tell  of  Constance's  adventures 
off  the  coast  of  Spain.  Here  again,  we  find  a 
break  in  the  narrative,  as  the  author  pauses  to 
comment  on  the  evils  of  self-indulgence,  and 
^  maid.  ^  have  pity  on.  *  rueful  being. 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS   SOURCES    97 

to  explain  how  God  sends  weak  women  the 
"  spirit  of  vigour  "  that  they  may  save  them- 
selves in  time  of  need.  The  rest  of  the  story 
follows  Trivet's  chronicle  very  closely,  though 
the  description  of  AUe's  meeting  with  his  wife 
is  Chaucer's  own: — 

I  trowe  an  hundred  tymes  been  they  kist, 
And  swich  a  blisse  is  ther  bitwix  hem  two 
That,  save  the  joye  that  lasteth  evermo 
Ther  is  non  lyk,  that  any  creature 
Hath  seyn  or  shal  whyl  that  the  world  may 
dure. 

And  he  also  adds  a  brief  comment  on  the 
instability  of  human  happiness. 

It  will  be  seen  that  Chaucer  tends  to  reduce 
descriptive  passages  pure  and  simple  to  a 
minimum,  and  so  far  to  condense  the  actual 
narrative  that  it  moves  quickly  and  straight- 
forwardly, while  at  the  same  time  he  expands 
any  situation  which  affords  opportunity  for 
the  display  of  character,  adds  dialogue  and 
intensifies  emotion,  and  also  shows  a  disposi-  i 
tion  to  comment  on  what  he  is  describing. 

The  Nonne  Preestes  Tale  is  based  on  Marie 
de  France's  fable  of  the  Cock  and  the  FoXy 
though  it  is  possible  that  Chaucer's  more 
immediate  source  was  an  enlargement  of  this, 
called  the  Roman  de  Renart.     The  Cock  and 


98       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

the  Fox  consists  of  but  thirty-eight  Unes,  and 
the  Roman  de  Renart  of  453,  whereas  the 
Nonne'Preestes  Tale  consists  of  626  Hnes,  so 
that  here  we  have  a  case  in  which  Chaucer 
enlarges  his  original  very  considerably.  In 
fact  he  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  borrowed 
more  than  the  bare  outline  of  the  story. 

In  the  first  place,  the  whole  description  of 
the  "  poore  widwe  "  and  her  poultry-yard  is 
entirely  Chaucer's.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
French  to  correspond  to  the  delightful  picture 
of  Chauntecleer  strutting  among  the  sub- 
missive hens —    . 

Of  which  the  faireste  hewed  on  hir  throte 
Was  cleped  faire  damoysele  Pertelote, 

or  singing  "  my  lief  is  faren  in  londe  "  ^  in 
sweet  accord  with  his  love.  Then  the  incident 
of  the  dream  is  entirely  altered.  The  French 
author  makes  dame  Pinte,  the  hen,  expound 
the  dream  to  her  husband  and  warn  him  of 
the  danger  which  lies  before  him.  Chaucer 
draws  inimitable  portraits  of  the  fussy,  self- 
important  cock,  thoroughly  frightened  and 
yet  too  conceited  to  accept  his  wife's  simple 
and  prosaic  suggestion  that  his  terrors  spring 
from  indigestion,  and  of  the  sensible,  practical 

^  my  love  has  gone  away. 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS   SOURCES    99 

hen  with  her  scathing  contempt  for  the 
husband  who  though  he  has  a  beard  has  yet 
"  no  mannes  heart."  And  here  follows  a 
lengthy  disquisition  on  dreams,  the  cock 
overwhelming  his  sceptical  wife  with  examples 
of  warning,,  which  have_been  fulfilled,  and 
illustrations  drawir"^fiom  ITie^lfnost  varied 
sources.  Having  restored  his  self-esteem  by 
reference  to  the  histories  of  Joseph,  St.  Kenelm, 
Croesus,  Andromache  and  others. 

Royal  he  was,  he  was  namore  aferd. 

The  advent  of  the  fox  gives  Chaucer  another 
opportunity  to  discuss  fore-knowledge,  and 
suddenly,  in  the  midst  of  this  lightest  and 
most  amusing  of  skits,  we  find  him  gravely 
considering  the  question  of  predestination  and 
free-will.  He  comes  to  no  conclusion,  but 
after  stating  various  learned  opinions,  shrugs 
his  shoulders  and  turns  aside  with  a  dry : — 

I  wol  not  han  to  do  of  swich  matere ; 
My  tale  is  of  a  cok,  as  ye  may  here  .  .  . 

The  dialogue  between  the  cock  and  the  fox 
is  much  the  same  in  both  versions,  though  as 
Dr.  Furnivall  points  out  {Chaucefs  Originals 
and  Analogues^  p.  112),  Chaucer  improves  the 
story  by  omitting  the  spring  made  by  the  fox 


100      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

before  he  begins  to  flatter  Chauntecleer ;  but 
Pinte  shows  none  of  the  extremely  proper 
feeUng  displayed  by  Pertelote  when  she  sees 
her  husband  carried  off  before  her  eyes  : — 

But  soverynly  dame  Pertelote  shrighte 
Ful  louder  than  dide  Hasdrubables  wyf, 
Whan  that  hir  housbond  hadde  lost  his  lyf, 
And  that  the  Romans  hadde  brende  Cartage. 

The  peculiar  characteristic  of  jhe  English 
version  is  ita-^alkpervading  sense  ofjiurnour, 
the  gravity  with  whichjwe  are  led  on  step  by 
ste£until  we  find^oursejvgs  accepting  the  most 
ridiculous^situations,  and  the  extraordinary 
skill  with  which  the  characters  of  Chauntecleer 
and  Pertelote  are  drawn. 

In  the  MoYikes  Tale  Chaucer  draws  his 
stories  of  the  falls  of  illustrious  men  from  all 
kinds  of  sources.  The  heroes  range  from 
Lucifer  to  Pedro  the  Cruel,  and  the  worthy 
monk  chooses  his  illustrations  apparently  at 
random,  now  from  sacred  history,  now  from 
the  classics,  now  from  contemporary  life.  Ng 
great  dramatic  skill  is  to  be  expected  pLthe 
narrator,  and  for  the  most  part  the  tragedies 
succeed  one  another  with  placid  regularity, 
the  occasional  comments  made  by  the  monk 
himself  showing  no  particular  insight  or 
intelligence.     Having    described  ^the    fall    of 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS  SOUHCES    lt)l 

Sampson,    for    instance,    no    more    inspiring 
reflection  occurs  to  him  than 

That  no  men  telle  hir  conseil  til  hir  wyves 
Of  swich  thing  as  they  wolde  han  secree  fayn, 
If  that  it  touche  hir  limmes  or  hir  lyves. 

One  tale,  however,  stands  out  conspicuously 
above  the  rest.  In  the  Inferno  (Canto 
XXXIII)  Dante  had  told  the  story  of  Count 
Hugo  of  Pisa,  who  was  locked  up  in  a  tower 
with  his  sons  and  starved  to  death.  In  a  few 
grim  words  he  describes  the  father's  despair 
and  the  slow  death  of  the  wretched  sons : — 

When  we  came 
To  the  fourth  day,  then  Gaddo  at  my  feet 
Outstretch'd  did  fling  him,  crying,  "  Hast  no 

help 
For  me,  my  father  ?  "     There  he  died ;  and 

e'en 
Plainly  as  thou  seest  me,  saw  I  the  three 
Fall  one  by  one  'twixt  the  fifth  day  and  sixth  : 
Whence  I  betook  me,  now  grown  blind,  to 

grope 
Over  them  all,  and  for  three  days  aloud 
Call'd  on  them  who  were  dead.     Then,  fasting 

got 
The  mastery  of  grief. 

(Carey's  translation.) 

Chaucer  takes  this  and  uses  it  as  the  basis 
of  one  of  his  tragedies.     In  Dante  the  actual 


102' • 'cft^lJCEE?  X. 

story  occupies  fifty-nine  lines,  in  Chaucer  it 
occupies  fifty-six,  so  in  this  case  there  is  Httle 
in  the  way  either  of  condensation  or  expansion. 
The  changes  which  Chaucer  makes  are,  how- 
ever, very  significant.  Dante  simply  says 
that  the  three  sons  of  Count  Hugo  suffer  with 
their  father.  Chaucer  enhances  the  pathos 
By  telling  us  that 

The  eldeste  scarsly  fyf  yeer  was  of  age. 

Alias,  fortune  !  it  was  greet  crueltee 

Swiche  briddes  for  to  putte  in  swiche  a  cage! 

When  Dante's  Count  Hugo  hears 

...  at  its  outlet  underneath  lock'd  up 
The  horrible  tower  .  .  . 

he  is  so  turned  to  stone  that  he  can  find  no 
relief  in  tears.     Chaucer's  cries, 

"  Alias  !  .  .  .  that  I  was  wrought." 
Therewith  the  teres  fiUen  from  his  yen.^ 

Chaucer  gives  us  a  moving  picture  of  the 
little  three-year-old  looking  up  and  asking 

"  Fader,  why  do  ye  wepe  ! 
Whan  wol  the  gayler  bringen  our  potage, 
Is  ther  no  morsel  breed  that  ye  do  kepe  ? 
I  am  so  hungry  that  I  may  nat  slepe  .  '.  ." 

and  finally  lying  down  in  his  father's  lap,  and 
kissing  him,  and  dying.     The  stem  horror  of 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS  SOURCES    103 

Dante's  story  is  too  terrible  to  admit  of  pathos 
such  as  this.  Chaucer's  version  is  infinitely 
touching,  but  it  has  nothing  in  it  that  chills 
our  blood  as  does  the  picture  of  the  father, 
grown  blind  with  hunger,  groping  over  the 
dead  bodies  of  his  children  till  fasting  gets  the 
mastery  of  grief.  He  can  depict  innocent 
suffering,  he  can  arouse  our  sympathy  and 
stir  our  pity,  but  he'  never  strikes  the  note  of 
real  tragedy.  It  is'  not  only  that  no  one  of 
his  many  heroes  and  heroines  experiences  any 
tragic  conflict  of  soul,  but  in  the  simple 
presentation  of  suffering  Chaucer  shows  little 
of  that  power  of  grim  suggestion,  of  appeal  to 
the  imagination,  which  are  among  the  most 
essential  characteristics  of  the  tragic  poet. 
Cressida's  hesitation  has  nothing  grand  or 
tragic  about  it.  She  is  simply  uncertain  which 
course  will  bring  her  most  happiness.  And 
her  repentance — if  such  it  can  be  called — is 
no  more  than  a  momentary  discomfort  at  the 
thought  that  she  has  caused  Troilus  pain  and 
that  unkind  things  are  likely  to  be  said  of  her. 
Troilus  suffers,  but,  in  Professor  Bradley's 
phrase,  it  is  suffering  that  merely  befalls  him, 
the  whole  tragedy  is  external,  and  his  aban- 
donment of  passion  has  none  of  the  dignity 
and  restraint  of  a  great  emotion.     Othello's 


104     CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

cry  of  "  Desdemona,  Desdemona  dead  I " 
contains  more  poignancy  of  suffering  than  all 
the  outbursts  of  Troilus  put  together.  Con- 
stance, and  Griselda,  and  Dorigen  all  know 
the  meaning  of  sorrow,  but  their  simple 
acceptance  of  their  fate  is  pathetic  rather  than 
tragic,  and  in  the  cases  of  Constance  and 
Griselda,  as  in  the  case  of  Count  Hugo,  the 
tragedy  is  further  softened  by  the  part  played 
by  the  children.  The  monk's  definition  of 
tragedy — though  it  need  not  necessarily 
be  Chaucer's  own — sufficiently  explains  the 
medieval  conception: — 

Tragedie  is  to  seyn  a  certeyn  storie. 
As  olde  bokes  maken  us  memorie. 
Of  him  that  stood  in  greet  prosperitee 
And  is  y-fallen  out  of  heigh  degree 
Into  miserie,  and  endeth  wrecchedly. 

To  Chaucer  the  interest  lies  in  the  study  of 
normal  men  and  women,  and  in  comparing  his 
narratives  with  their  originals  nothing  is  more 
striking  than  the  air  of  homeliness  and  natur- 
alness with  which  he  contrives  to  invest  the 
most  amazing  incidents.  Dorigen  and  her 
husband  strike  one  as  simple,  natural  folk 
whose  nice  sense  of  honour  leads  them  to 
keep  their  word  though  it  were  to  their  own 
hindrance.     We  hardly  notice  the  absurdity  of 


TREATMENT  OF  HIS   SOURCES    105 

the  situation  itself,  and  are  little  troubled  by 
the  magic  arts  which  enable  her  persecutor  to 
remove  all  rocks  from  the  coast  of  Brittany. 
Constance  is  no  tragedy-queen,  but  a  true- 
hearted,  simple  woman ;  and  the  fact  that  she 
lives  in  a  world  of  miracles  never  obtrudes 
itself.  We  accept  her  adventures  without  a 
qualm  since  our  interest  lies  in  her  personality, 
and  the  odd  thing  is  that  her  personality, 
attractive  as  it  is,  strikes  one  as  so  little  out 
of  the  common.  Writers  of  the  day,  as  a 
rule,  desired  either  to  point  a  moral  or  to 
thrill  their  readers  by  sheer  force  of  adventure. 
Chaucer  took  the  accepted  Conventions  of  his 
day,  and  pierced  through  them  to  the  human 
nature  underneath. 


^  CHAPTER  IV 

Chaucer's  character-drawing 

Like  every  other  young  poet  Chaucer  had 
to  learn  his  trade,  and  in  nothing  is  the 
development  of  his  genius  more  clearly  to  be 
traced  than  in  his  treatment  of  character. 
The  Book  of  the  Duchesse  gives  us  a  sort 
of  map  of  the  character  of  the  good  fair 
White :  in  his  choice  of  qualities  and 
method  of  expression  Chaucer  shows  both 
observation  and  originality,  but  the  plan  of 
the  poem  precludes  anything  in  the  nature 
of  dramatic  self-revelation,  and  the  whole 
description  of  Blanche  is  from  the  outside. 
The  Parlement  of  Foules  and  the  Hous  of 
Fame  afford  little  scope  for  character-draw- 
ing, and  though  something  more  might  be 
expected  of  the  Legend  of  Good  Women,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  moral  purpose  which  in- 
spires it  leads  to  perfunctory  and  undramatic 
treatment  of  the  legends. 

One  only  of  Chaucer's  earlier  poems  shows 

the    true    bent    of    his    genius.     The    rough 
106 


HIS   CHARACTER-DRAWING      107 

sketches  which  he  afterwards  worked  up 
and  used  in  the  Canterbury  Tales  had  given 
some  evidence  of  his  keen  interest  in  human 
nature,  but  not  until  we  come  to  Troilus  and 
Criseyde  do  we  find  him  giving  full  rein  to  his 
invention.  The  earlier  part  of  Book  I,  which 
describes  how  Troilus  first  catches  sight  of 
Cressida  in  the  temple  and  at  once  falls  in 
love  with  her,  is  taken  almost  literally  frorn 
Boccaccio,  but  the  entrance  of  Pandarus 
strikes  a  new  note.  Troilus  lies  languishing 
in  his  chamber  in  the  most  approved  manner, 
when  Pandarus  .comes  in  and  hearing  him 
asks  what  is  the  matter  : — 

Han  now  thus  sone  Grekes  maad  yow  lene  ?  ^ 
Or  hastow  som  remors  of  conscience. 
And  art  now  falle  in  som  devocioun  .  .  .  ? 

Troilus  replies  that  he  is  the  "  refus  of  every 
creature,"  and  that  love  has  overcome  him 
and  brought  him  to  despair.  Pandarus  heaves 
a  sigh  of  relief  and  says  if  that  is  all  he  will 
soon  put  matters  right,  for  though  he  knows 
nothing  of  such  foolishness  himself,  he  can 
easily  arrange  the  affair  : — 

A  whetston  is  no  kerving  instrument, 
And  yet  it  maketh  sharpe  kerving- tolis.^ 

1  Have  the  Greeks  thus  soon  made  you  thin  ? 
^  Carving -tools. 


108      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Troilus  still  refuses  to  be  comforted  and  only 
casts  up  his  eyes  and  sighs,  whereupon  Pan- 
darus  grows  annoyed  as  well  as  anxious : — 

And  cryde  "  a- wake  "  ful  wonderly  and  sharpe ; 
What  ?    slombrestow  as  in  a  lytargye  ?  ^ 
Or  artow  lyk  an  asse  to  the  harpe, 
That  hereth   soun,   when  men  the   strenges 

But  in  his  minde  of  that  no  melodye 
May  sinken,  him  to  glade,  for  that  he 
So  dul  is  of  his  bestialitee  ? 

Having  at  last  succeeded  in  rousing  the  dis- 
consolate lover  and  inducing  him  once  more 
to  take  his  part  in  the  life  of  court  and  camp, 
Pandarus  hurries  off  to  interview  his  niece, 
whom  he  finds  sitting  with  her  maidens 
*'  with-inne  a  paved  parlour "  reading  the 
geste  of  Thebes.  The  contrast  between  the 
shrewd,  elderjy  man  of  the  world  and  the 
love-sick  youth  has  been  admirably  brought 
out  in  Book  I;  in  Book  II  a  different,  but 
no  less  striking  contrast  is  shown  between 
the  coarse  humour  and  practical  wisdom  of 
the  uncle  and  the  daintiness  and  charm  of  the 
niece.  Pandarus  angles  for  Cressida  and 
plays  her  as  a  skilful  fisherman  plays  a  trout. 
It  is  obvious  that  he  regards  the  whole  thing 

*  Slumberest  thou  as  if  in  a  lethargy. 


HIS  CHARACTER-DRAWING     109 

as  a  good-natured  grown-up  regards  a  chil- 
dren's game.  It  is  deadly  earnest  to  them, 
and  since  they  take  it  so  seriously  he  will 
do  his  best  to  help  them,  but  all  the  while 
he  considers  it  a  piece  of  pretty  and  amusing 
childishness,  though  he  takes  pleasure  in 
playing  it  adroitly.  His  idea  of  effective  appeal 
is  to  poke  his  niece  "  ever  newe  and  newe  "  and 
his  jests  when  he  has  succeeded  in  bringing 
the  lovers  together  savour  more  of  the  camp 
than  the  court.  When  the  tragedy  occurs 
and  Troilus  and  Cressida  are  parted  for  ever, 
Pandarus  has  no  better  comfort  to  offer 
than  the  platitude  : —  "^ 

That  alwey  f reendes  may  nought  been  y-f ere,^ 

and  he  evidently  thinks  that  Troilus  is  making 
a  most  unnecessary  fuss  about  it,  though 
he  is  so  sincerely  distressed  at  Cressida's 
treachery  that  he  offers — lightly  enough — to 
"  hate  hir  evermore  "  : — 

If  I  dide  ought  that  mighte  lyken  thee, 
It  is  me  leef ;  ^  and  of  this  treson  now, 
God  woot,  that  it  a  sorwe  is  un-to  me  ! 
And  dredeless,'  for  hertes  ese  of  yow,^ 
Right  fayn  wolde  I  amende  it,  wiste  I  how. 

^  Friends  cannot  always  be  together. 

2  I  am  glad  (lit.  it  is  dear  to  me). 

^  And  without  doubt,  to  ease  your  heart. 


110      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

And  fro  this  world,  almighty  god  I  preye 
DeHvere  hir  sone;  I  can*  no-more  seye. 

At  the  same  time  he  is  a  person  of  some 
energy  and  force.  When  Troilus  rushes  about 
his  chamber  beating  his  head  against  the  wall, 

And  of  his  deeth  roreth  in  compleyninge, 

Pandarus  shows  some  impatience  of  such 
weakness  and  bids  him  pull  himself  together 
and 

.  .  .  manly  set  the  world  on  sixe  and  sevene ; 
And  if  thou  deye  a  martir,  go  to  hevene. 

Excellently  sound  advice. 

Nowhere  is  attention  ostentatiously  called 
to  him;  we  are  never  allowed  to  feel  that 
he  is  being  dragged  in  by  way  of  comic 
relief ;  but  his  mere  presence  at  once  removes 
Troilus  and  Criseyde  from  the  category  of 
conventional  love-romances,  and  the  very 
fact  that  we  are  left  to  discover  his  signifi- 
cance for  ourselves,  without  comment  or  ex- 
planation shows  Chaucer's  confidence  in  his 
craftmanship. 

But  skilfully  as  Pandarus  is  drawn,  the 
character  of  Cressida  shows  even  greater 
subtlety  of  treatment.  To  the  medieval 
mind  faithlessness  in  love  was  the  one  un- 


HIS  CHARACTER-DRAWING     111 

forgivable  crime.  Nearly  a  hundred  years 
after  Chaucer  wrote  his  Troilus  and  Criseyde, 
Sir  Thomas  Malory  tells  us  of  Guenever,  "  she 
was  a  good  lover  and  therefore  she  made  a 
good  end,"  and  again  and  again  in  the  medieval 
romances  proper  we  find  the  same  thought 
insisted  on.  Chaucer  had  therefore  no  light 
task  before  him  when  he  set  out  to  draw  a 
heroine  at  once  lovable  and  fickle,  and  to 
enlist  the  sympathies  of  his  readers  on  behalf 
of  one  whose  name  had  become  a  by- word  for 
faithlessness  in  love.  With  consummate  skill 
he  insists  from  the  outset  on  her  gentleness 
and  timidity.  When  Pandarus  declares  that 
the  deaths  both  of  Troilus  and  himself  will  lie 
at  her  door  if  she  turns  a  deaf  ear  to  his 
pleading,  Cressida  is  simple  enough  to  believe 
that  he  means  it,  and 

,  .  .  wel  neigh  starf  for  fere,^ 

So  as  she  was  the  f erf uUeste  wight  ^ 

That  might  be.  .  .  . 

That  she  is  no  vulgar  coquette  is  shown  by 
her  ignorance  of  Troilus's  passion.  Appar- 
ently he  spends  his  whole  time  in  the  temple 
gazing  at  her,  but  there  is  no  mistaking  the 
sincerity  of  her  unselfconsciousness  and  sur- 

^  almost  died  for  fear.        ^  the  most  timid  person. 


112      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

prise  when  Pandarus  tells  h^r  of  her  lover's . 
pHght.  Nor  is  she  at  first  altogether  pleased 
at  having  one  of  the  handsomest  and  bravest 
of  Priam's  sons  at  her  feet;  indeed  Chaucer 
is  at  some  pains  to  explain  that  she  does  not 
suffer  herself  to  be  lightly  won  : — 

For  I  sey  nought  that  she  so  sodeynly 
Yaf  him  hir  love,  but  that  she  gan  enclyne 
To  lyk  him  first,  and  I  have  told  you  why ; 
And  after  that,  his  manhood  and  his  pyne  ^ 
Made  love  with-inne  hir  for  to  myne,^ 
For  which,  by  process  and  by  good  servyse 
He  gat  hir  love,  and  in  no  sodyn  wyse. 

Altogether  we  get  the  impression  of  a  simple, 
child-like  being  who  wanders  happily  about 
hex  garden  with  Flexippe  and  Tharbe  and 
Antigone  "  and  othere  of  hir  wommen,"  or 
sits  poring  over  tales  of  chivalry,  without  a 
thought  of  marriage.  She  is  woman  enough 
to  feel  the  force  of  Pandarus's  hint  that  it  is 
folly  to  live 

....  alle  proude 
Til  Crowes  feet  be  growe  under  your  ye, 

and  to  like  the  thought  that  the  hero  who 
rides  blushing  through  the  cheering  crowd 

' is  he 

Which  that  myn  uncle  swereth  he  most  be  deed 
But  I  on  him  have  mercy  and  pitee, 
^  pain.  2  mine. 


HIS  CHARACTER-DRAWING     113 

but  she  is  no  Delilah  spreading  her  snares 
for  men.  Her  uncle,  the  only  person  whom 
she  has  to  advise  her,  urges  her  to  listen  to 
Troilus;  the  prince  himself  has  everything 
likely  to  attract  a  girl's  fancy;  and  as  she 
sagely  remarks  : — 

I  knowe  also,  and  alday  here  and  see 

Men  loven  wommen  al  this  toun  aboute ; 

Be  they  the  wers  ?  why  nay,  with-outen  doubte. 

No  wonder  she  finally  yields  to  her  lover's 
passionate  wooing  when  Pandarus  tricks  her 
into  coming  to  see*  him  : —    . 

"  But  nathelees,  this  warne  I  yow,"  quod  she, 

"  A  kinges  sone  although  ye  be,  y-wis. 

Ye  shul  na-more  have  soverainetee 

Of  me  in  love,  than  right  that  cas  is ; 

Ne  I  nil  forbere,  if  that  ye  doon  a-mis. 

To  wrathen  ^  yow ;  and  whyl  that  ye  me  serve 

Cherycen  ^  yow  right  after  ye  deserve. 

And  shortly,  dere  herte  and  al  my  knight, 
Beth  glad,  and  draweth  yow  to  lustinisse. 
And  I  shal  trewely,  with  al  my  might. 
Your  bittre  tornen  al  into  swetnesse; 
If  I  be  she  that  may  yow  do  gladnesse. 
For  every  wo  ye  shal  recovre  a  blisse ; 
And  him  in  armes  took,  and  gan  him  kisse." 

There  is  no  prettier  confession  of  love  in  all 

literature.     Then   follows   their   brief  period 

^  be  wroth  with.  ^  cherish. 

H 


114      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

of  rapture,  with  its  mock  quarrels  and  speedy 
reconciliations,  before  the  dreadful  day  when 
Calkas  sends  for  his  daughter.  The  news 
that  Cressida  is  to  be  delivered  up  to  the  Greeks 
fills  the  lovers  with  despair.  Troilus  flings 
himself  on  his  bed  railing  against  Fortune  and 
abusing  Calkas  as  an 

.  .  .  olde  unholsom  and  mislyved  man : 
Cressida  with  tears  prepares  for  her  journey. 
One  of  the  most  -delightful  pictures  in  the 
whole  story  is  that  of  the  worthy  women  who 
came  to  bid  her  farewell  and  take  her  tears  as 
a  delicate  compliment  to  themselves  : — 

And  thilke  foles  sittinge  hir  aboute 
Wenden  that  she  wepte  and  syked  ^  sore 
By-cause  that  she  sholde  out  of  that  route 
Depart,  and  never  pleye  with  hem  more. 
And  they  that  hadde  y-knowen  hir  of  yore 
Seye  hir  so  wepe,  and  thoughte  it  kindenesse. 
And  eche  of  hem  wepte  eek  for  hir  distresse. 

Her  sorrow  is  sincere,  and  her  tears  do  not 
cease  to  flow  when  Troilus  is  out  of  sight. 
Shakespeare's  Cressid,  whose  one  idea  is  to 
ingratiate  herself  with  her  new  friends,  is 
a  very  different  person  from  Chaucer's  woe- 
begone heroine.  And  yet  in  her  very  sorrow 
we  see  her  weakness.  When  Pandarus  first 
*  sighed. 


HIS   CHARACTER-DRAWING     115 

tried  to  move  her  pity  she  had  yielded,  not 
solely  out  of  compassion  but  also  because 
she  was  afraid  of  what  might  be  said  of  her 
if  any  harm  came  to  Troilus  : — 

And  if  this  man  slee  here  him'self,  alias  ! 
In  my  presence,  it  wol  be  no  solas. 
What  men  wolde  of  hit  deme  I  can  nat  seye  : 
It  nedeth  me  ful  sleyly  for  to  pley.^ 

The  same  strain  of  selfishness  manifests 
itself  now.  Cressida  is  incapable  of  being 
swept  away  by  a  great  passion.  She  has  a 
cat-like  softness  and  daintiness  and  charm,  a 
cat's  readiness  to  attach  herself  to  the  person 
she  is  with  at  the  moment,  and  a  cat's  adapt- 
ability to  circumstances.  She  is  genuinely 
distressed  at  being  parted  from  Troilus,  she 
cries  till  her  eyes  have  dark  rings  round  them, 
and  even  Pandarus  is  moved  at  the  sight, 
but  she  is  incapable  of  exposing  herself  to 
any  danger  or  inconvenience  for  her  lover's 
sake.  Like  the  lady  in  the  Statue  and  the  Bust 
she  hesitates  at  the  thought  of  difficulty: — 

"  And  if  that  I  me  putte  in  jupartye  ^ 
To  stele  awey  by  nighte,  and  it  befalle 
That  I  be  caught,  I  shal  be  holde  a  spye,  i 
Or  elles,  lo,  this  drede  I  most  of  alle 
If  in  the  hondes  of  som  wrecche  I  falle, 

^  f .  c.  I  must  act  cautiously.  ^  jeopardy. 


116      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

I  am  but  lost,  al  be  myn  herte  trewe ; 
Now  mighty  god,  thou  on  my  sorwe  rewe  ! 

,)?  But  natheles,  bityde  what  bityde, 
'  I  shal  to-morwe  at  night,  by  est  or  weste. 
Out  of  the  ost  stele  on  som  maner  syde, 
And  go  with  Troilus  wher-as  him  leste. 
This  purpos  wol  I  holde,  and  this  is  beste. 
No  fors  of  wikked  tonges  janglerye,^ 
For  ever  on  love  han  wrecches  had  envye. 

To  such  souls  to-morrow  never  comes,  and 
it  is  no  surprise  to  find  her  before  long  yielding 
to  Diomede's  entreaties,  as  she  had  formerly 
yielded  to  those  of  Troilus.  Boccaccio's 
heroine  at  once  makes  up  her  mind  to  flee 
from  the  Greek  camp,  and  then  is  quickly 
turned  from  her  "  high  and  great  intent  " 
by  the  advent  of  a  new  lover.  Chaucer  with 
far  greater  sublety  prepares  us  for  the  cfiange, 
and  makes  her  very  weakness  her  excuse  : — 

But  trewely,  the  story  telleth  us, 
Ther  made  never  womman  more  wo 
Than  she,  whan  that  she  falsed  Troilus. 

The  reason  for  this  excess  of  sorrow  is  char- 
acteristic : — 

Sihe  seyde,  "  Alias  !    for  now  is  clene  a-go 
My  name  of  trouthe  in  love  for  ever-mo 

1  No  matter  for  the  jangling  of  wi^l«^<^r!  innomAsi 


HIS   CHARACTER-DRAWING     117 

Alias,  of  me  unto  the  worldes  ende 
Shal  neither  been  y-written  nor  y-songe 
No  good  word,  for  thise  bokes  wol  me  shende,^ 
O,  rolled  shal  I  ben  on  many  a  tonge,"  ^ 

and  equally  characteristic  her  hasty  excuse, 

"  Al  be  I  not  the  firste  that  dide  amis," 

and  the  sublime  self-confidence  with  which 
in  the  act  of  jilting  one  lover  slie^  announces 
her  unalterable  fidelity  to  the  next : — 

"  And  sin  I  see  there  is  no  bettre  way, 
And  that  to  late  is  now  for  me  to  rewe, 
To  Diomede  algate  I  wol  be  trewe." 

The  whole  character  is  drawn  with  extra- 
ordinary delicacy  and  insight,  and  with  a 
tenderness  which  marks  Chaucer's  large- 
hearted  tolerance.  It  is  comparatively  easy 
for  an  author  to  hold  up  a  character  to 
execration,  but  only  the  very  greatest  can 
show  us  the  weaknesses  of  human  nature 
>vithout  for  one  moment  becoming  cynical 
or  contemptuous. 

In  the  Canterbury  Tales  Chaucer's  method 
of  character  delineation  is  more  concise.  In 
Troilus  and  Criseyde  he  has  five  books,  con- 
taining   over    8000    lines,    at    his     disposal, 

^  blame.       ^  i^  g^  ^^^y  name  will  be  in  everyone's  mouth. 


118      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

and  the  raptures  and  anguish  of  the  lovers 
are  described  at  considerable  length.  In  the 
Canterbury  Tales  he  has  a  far  more  complex 
task  before  him ;  he  has  to  present  the  pilgrims 
themselves,  in  the  various  prologues  and  end- 
links  ;  to  make  each  tale  a  dramatic  revelation 
of  the  character  of  the  teller;  and  to  exhibit 
the  characters  of  the  personages  who  play 
a  part  in  the  various  stories.  The  560  lines 
of  the  Prologue  in  themselves  contain  a  far 
greater  number  and  variety  of  characters  than 
are  to  be  found  in  the  whole  of  Troilus  and 
Criseyde^  and  if  there  is  less  subtlety  of 
treatment  the  later  prologues  and  end-links 
soon  atone  for  this.  Nothing,  for  instance, 
would  have  been  easier  than  to  draw  a  con- 
ventional picture  of  the  self-indulgent,  pleasure- 
loving  monk,  and  at  first  sight  we  might  think 
that  Chaucer  had  done  little  more,  though 
even  in  the  Prologue  we  are  conscious  of  a 
sharp  distinction  between  the  Monk,  who  with 
all  his  faults  is  a  gentleman,  and  such  vulgar 
impostors  as  the  Pardoner  and  the  Somnour. 
But  further  acquaintance  soon  rectifies  this 
conception.  Self  -  indulgent  and  pleasure- 
loving  the  Monk  undoubtedly  is,  but  he  is 
no  hypocrite  or  evil-liver.  The  Host  makes 
one  of  his  few  mistakes  in  tact  by  treating 


HIS ,  CHARACTER-DRAWING      119 

him  with  breezy  famiharity,  "  Ryd  forth," 
he  cries : — 

Ryd  forth,  myn  owne  lord,  brek  nat  our  game. 
But,  by  my  trouthe,  I  knowe  nat  your  name, 
Wher  shal  I  calle  you  my  lord  dan  John, 
Or  dan  Thomas,  or  elles  dan  Albon  ? 
Of  what  hous  be  ye,  by  your  fader  kin  ? 
I  vow  to  god,  thou  hast  a  f ul  fair  skin. 
It  is  a  gentil  pasture  ther  thou  goost ; 
Thou  art  nat  lyk  a  penaunt^  or  a  goost. 

The  Monk  knows  better  than  to  rebuke  the 
somewhat  coarse  pleasantries  that  follow; 
but  with  quiet  dignity  he  ignores  the  familiarity 
and  offers  to  relate  either  the  life  of  St.  Edward 
or  else  a  series  of  tragedies  : — 

Of  whiche  I  have  an  hundred  in  my  celle. 

The  choice  of  subjects  in  itself  constitutes 
a  delicate  but  unmistakable  snub.  The  Host 
expected  some  tale  of  hunting  and  merriment 
from  him — tragedy  has  little  in  common  with 
his  stout,  jovial  person,  and  frank  delight 
in  good  living — instead  of  which  the  pilgrims 
are  regaled  with  a  series  of  moral  discourses 
which  would  have  been  perfectly  in  place  in 
the  cloister,  but  seem  strangely  ill-suited  to 
the  present  company.  Indeed,  the  pilgrims 
grow  restive  under   so   much   good   advice; 

*  penitent. 


120      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

they  evidently  fear  that  the  worthy  Monk 
means  to  inflict  the  whole  hundred  tragedies 
on  them,  and  after  listening,  with  growing 
impatience,  to  seventeen  tales  of  woe,  the 
tender-hearted  Knight  can  bear  no  more : — 

"  Ho  !  "  quod  the  knight,  "  good  sir,  na-more 
of  this. 
That  ye  han  seyd  is  right  y-nough,  y-wis, 
And  mochel  more ;  for  litel  hevinesse 
Is  right  y-nough  to  mochel  folk,  I  gesse. 
I  seye  for  me  it  is  a  greet  disese 
Wher-as  men  han  ben  in  greet  welthe  and  ese 
To  heren  of  hir  sodyn  fal,  alias  !  " 

But  it  is  significant  that  it  is  the  Knight  and 
not  the  Host  who  breaks  in,  and  that  it  is 
not  until  the  Knight  has  spoken  that  Harry 
Bailly  informs  the  narrator  of  the  obvious 
fact  that  his  tale  ''  anoyeth  al  this  company e," 
and  courteously  begs  him  to  "  sey  somwhat 
of  hunting."  The  Monk  refuses,  and  the 
turn  passes  to  the  Nun's  Priest,  but  never 
again  does  the  Host  venture  to  take  a  liberty 
with  ''  dan  Piers." 

The  Host's  character  is  drawn  with  extra- 
ordinary skill,  and  without  the  aid  of  any  such 
introductory  description  as  the  Prologue  gives 
us  of  the  other  pilgrims.  The  knowledge  of 
human  nature  is  part  of  his  trade,  and  the 


HIS  CHARACTER-DRAWING      121 

success  with  which  he  manages  the  diverse 
company  which  chance  has  thrown  in  his  way- 
is  proof  enough  that  he  is  passed-master  of 
his  profession.  Shrewd,  worldly,  and  un- 
imaginative, we  should  imagine  that  the 
coarser  tales  best  please  his  taste,  but  it  is 
his  business  to  cater  for  people  of  all  kinds, 
and  he  well  understands  how  to  ensure  suffi- 
cient variety  to  suit  all  listeners.  His  rough 
good-humoured  air  of  authority  is  sufficient 
to  keep  the  Friar  and  the  Somnour  within 
bounds.  He  prevents  the  drunken  Cook  from 
becoming  an  intolerable  nuisance  to  the  com- 
pany. He  keeps  an  eye  on  every  individual 
pilgrim,  and  sees  that  no  one  is  overlooked. 
His  ready  jests  smooth  over  many  little 
roughnesses  and  disagreeables,  and  the  one 
thing  that  really  takes  him  aback  is  when  the 
poor  parson  rebukes  him  for  the  constant  \ 
oaths  which  slip  off  his  tongue  so  readily.  \ 
He  can  only  conclude  that  a  person  so  extra- 
ordinary must  be  a  Lollard.  And  all  the 
time  that  he  is  keeping  the  pilgrims  in  a  good 
temper  and  preventing  them  from  feeling 
the  journey  irksome,  he  has  by  no  means  lost 
sight  of  the  fact  that  the  reward  of  the  best 
story  is  to  be  "  a  soper  at  our  aller  cost," 
given  at  the 'Tabard  Inn.     The  money  be 


122      CHAUCER  AND   HIS  TIMES 

expended  on  the  pilgrimage  was  probably  a 
good  investment — not  to  mention  the  chance 
that  his  expenses  might  very  possibly  be  re- 
duced to  nothing,  since  at  the  very  beginning 

he  had  established  it  as  a  law  that : — 

« 

.  .  .  who-so  wol  my  judgement  withseye 
Shal  paye  al  that  we  spenden  by  the  weye. 

A  very  practical  person,  Harry  Bailly ! 

Chaucer  excels  in  drawing  characters  of 
this  type.  His  young  men  are  not  unlike  the 
heroes  of  Shakespearean  comedy.  They  are 
real  enough,  but  they  have  no  very  marked 
individuality.  The  Squire  is  by  far  the  best 
of  them.  In  him  we  see  the  charm  and  fresh- 
ness of  youth,  and  it  would  be  ungracious 
to  ask  more  of  so  fair  a  promise.  But  Troilus, 
with  his  tearfulness  and  emotionalism,  his 
readiness  to  procrastinate  and  to  look  to 
others  to  help  him  out  of  his  difficulties, 
with  something  of  Bassanio's  gallantry  and 
attractiveness,  has  also  Bassanio's  pliability. 
His  is  too  slight  a  nature  to  form  the  centre 
of  a  tragedy.  Palamon  and  Arcite  are  as 
indistinguishable  as  Demetrius  and  Lysander. 
There  are  critics  who  profess  to  see  subtle 
differences  of  character  between  them,  but 
to  the  majority  of  readers  they  are  mere  types 


HIS   CHARACTER-DRAWING      123 

of  chivalry.  Dorigen's  husband,  Averagus, 
is  little  more  than  an  embodiment  of  loyal 
truth,  and  Griselda's,  were  one  to  regard 
him  as  anything  but  the  means  of  testing 
wifely  patience,  would  be  a  monster  of  cruelty. 
Compare  with  these,  the  Pardoner,  the  Friar, 
the  Somnour,  the  Canon's  Yeoman,  the  Miller, 
and  all  the  other  commonplace,  practical 
men  whom  Chaucer  describes.  Most  of  them 
strike  us  as  elderly;  certainly  none  of  them 
have  any  of  the  freshness  or  idealism  of  youth. 
The  remarkable  thing  about  them  is  that 
they  are  so  ordinary  and  yet  so  interesting. 
The  fussy  self-importance  of  Chauntecleer ; 
the  garrulous  vulgarity  of  Pandarus;  the 
senile  uxoriousness  of  January,  are  all  drawn 
to  the  life,  without  one  touch  of  bitterness 
or  exaggeration.  We  listen  to  the  jests  and 
squabbles  of  the  pilgrims  on  the  road  to 
Canterbury,  or  the  story  of  some  drama  of 
everyday  life,  and  we  feel  as  if  we  had  been 
made  free  of  the  ale-house  and  were  listening 
to  the  village  gossips  of  our  own  day. 

But  if  the  best  drawn  of  Chaucer's  men  are 
confined  to  one  comparatively  narrow  class, 
his  women  show  no  such  limitation.  He 
draws  no  great  tragedy-queen,  no  Guenever 
or  Vittoria  Corrombona,  but  with  this  great 


124      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

exception  he  depicts  women  of  almost  every 
type.  Before  going  on  to  discuss  his  heroines 
in  detail,  however,  it  might,  perhaps,  be  well 
to  say  a  few  words  as  to  Chaucer's  attitude 

\    towards  women  in  general. 

4^  It  must  be  evident  even  to  the  most  super- 
ficial observer,  that  Chaucer  had  an  innate 
reverence  for  womanhood.  The  cult  of  the 
Virgin  Mary,  which  had  done  so  much  to 
exalt  woman  among  all  Christian  nations, 
appe^ed  to  him  strongly,  and,  as  we  have 
seen,  he  more  than  once  goes  out  of  his  way 
to  introduce  some  invocation  to  the  ''  flour 
of  virgines  alle."  His  love  of  children  no 
doubt  inclined  him  to  look  with  tenderness 
on  the  relation  of  mother  and  child,  and 
among  his  most  beautiful  pictures  are  those 
^^  of  Constance,  with  her  baby  in  her  arms, 
and  Griselda  bidding  farewell  to  her  "  litel 
yonge  mayde  "  : — 

And  in  her  barm  ^  this  litel  child  she  leyde 
With  ful  sad  face,  and  gan  the  child  to  kisse 
And  lulled  it,  and  after  gan  it  blisse.^ 

But  he  was  far  too  shrewd  and  honest  an 
observer  of  life  to  persuade  himself  that  all 
women  were  .  angels,   or  to  allow  reverence 
^  lap.  2  bless. 


HIS   CHARACTER-DRAWING      125 

to  degenerate  into  sentimentality.  His  at- 
-4,itude  towards  marriage  is  characteristic. 
Reference  has  already  been  made  to  his  accept- 
ance of  the  comic  convention  of  the  shrewish 
wife,  and  certainly  both  the  Host  and  the 
Merchant  have  but  few  illusions  left  concerning 
wives.  The  virago  whom  the  Host  has  married 
cannot  as  much  as  go  to  say  her  prayers  without 
finding  some  cause  of  quarrel : — 

And  if  that  any  neighebour  of  myne 

Wol  nat  in  chirche  to  my  wyf  enclyne,^ 

Or  be  so  hardy  to  hir  to  trespace, 

Whan  she  comth  hoom,  she  rampeth  in  my  face, 

And  cryeth, ''  false  coward,  wreck  ^  thy  wyf ! " 

The  Merchant's  wife  would  "  overmatch  the 
devil  himself  "  were  he  foolish  enough  to  wed 
her.  In  the  Lenvoy  to  the  Clerkes  Tale 
Chaucer  warns  modern  husbands  to  look  for 
no  patient  Griseldas  among  their  wives,  and 
gives  much  satiric  advice  to  "  archewyves  " 
to  stand  no  nonsense  from  their  husbands. 
In  the  Lenvoy  a  Bukton  he  warns  his  friend 
of  "  the  sorwe  and  wo  that  is  in  mariage  "  : — 

I  wol  nat  seyn  how  that  it  is  the  cheyne  ^ 
Of  Sathanas,  on  which  he  gnaweth  ever. 
But  I  dar  seyn,  were  he  out  of  his  peyne, 
As  by  his  wille,  he  wolde  be  bounne  never. 

*  do  reverence,  bow.        ^  wreak,  avenge.        *  chain. 


126      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

A  fair  proportion  of  the  Canterbury  Tales 
deal  with  the  tricks  by  which  a  faithless  wife 
imposes  on  her  too  credulous  husband,  and 
the  bitterest  of  all  the  words  which  Chaucer 
utters  on  the  subject  are  those  which  preface 
the  Marchantes  Tale  of  January  and  May, 
when  with  biting  sarcasm  he  rebukes  Theo- 
phrastus  for  daring  to  say  that  a  good  servant 
is  of  more  value  than  a  wife,  and  goes  on  to 
discuss  at  length  the  happiness  of  wedded 
life  :— 

How  mighte  a  man  han  any  adversitee 
That  hath  a  wyf  ?  certes  I  can  nat  seye. 
The  blisse  which  that  is  bitwixe  hem  tweye 
Ther  may  no  tonge  telle,  or  herte  thinke. 
If  he  be  poore,  she  helpeth  him  to  swinke ;  ^ 
She  kepeth  his  good,  and  wasteth  never  a  deel  j 
Al  that  her  housbonde  lust,^  hir  lyketh  weel ;  ^ 

before  relating  the  shame  which  a  young  wife 
brings  upon  her  doting  old  husband.  The 
Shipmann  protests  with  brutal  frankness 
that  wives  cost  more  than  they  are  worth, 
and  tells  a  tale  to  prove  it.  From  all  this 
we  might  imagine  Chaucer  a  cross-grained 
misogynist,  but  a  glance  for  one  moment  at 
the  other  side  of  the  picture  corrects  this 
impression.     He  is  as  ready  to  say  what  will 

*  toil  ^  desires.         '  seems  good  to  her. 


HIS   CHARACTER-DRAWING     127 

amuse  his  contemporaries  as  Shakespeare 
is  to  tickle  the  ears  of  the  groundHngs  in  his 
generation,  but,  Hke  Shakespeare,  he  is  too 
just  to  see  anything  from  only  one  point  of 
view.  There  certainly  are  women  who  abuse 
their  husbands,  and  Chaucer's  inferiority 
to  Shakespeare  is  marked  by  the  fact  that 
he  finds  the  situation  amusing;  and  there  are 
also  shrews  and  termagants  who  make  their 
husbands'  lives  a  burden  in  other  ways. 
But  pecking  is  not  confined  to  hens.  Chaucer 
realises  that  for  woman  marriage  is  even 
more  of  a  lottery  than  for  man,  since  she  is 
necessarily  so  much  at  her  husband's  mercy  : — 

Lo,  how  a  woman  doth  amis. 

To  love  him  that  unknowen  is  ! 

For,  by  Crist,  lo  !    thus  it  f areth ; 

"  Hit  is  not  al  gold  that  glareth."  ^ 

For,  al-so  brouke  I  wel  myn  heed,^ 

Ther  may  be  under  goodliheed 

Kevered  many  a  shrewd  vyce ; 

Therefore  be  no  wight  so  nyce 

To  take  a  love  only  for  chere. 

For  speche,  or  for  frendly  manere; 

For  this  shal  every  woman  finde 

That  som  man,  of  his  pure  kinde,^ 

Wol  shewen  outward  the  faireste. 

Til  he  have  caught  that  what  him  lestc; 

*  glitters.        2  i.  e.  as  my  brains  tell  me. 
^  simply  by  nature. 


128      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

And  thanne  wol  he  causes  finde, 
And  swere  how  that  she  is  unkinde, 
Or  fals,  or  prevy,  or  double  was. 

{Hous  of  Fame,  Bk.  I,  11.  269-85.) 

Husband-hunting  is  a  sport  which  has  roused 
the  laughter  of  men  from  time  immemorial; 
Chaucer  is  one  of  the  few  who  has  ever  por- 
trayed that  fierce  shrinking  from  the  thought 
of  matrimony  which  is  no  less  common  among 
women.  Emily  longing  to  be  free  to  roam  in 
the  forest  and  "  noght  to  been  a  wyf,"  and 
Constance  trembling  at  the  thought  of  the 
strange  man  into  whose  hands  she  is  being 
committed,  are  as  true  to  life  as  the  Wife  of 
Bath  with  her  husbands  five  at  the  Church 
door.  And  this  poet,  who  sees  so  clearly 
the  dangers  and  evils  of  matrimony,  has  left 
us  one  of  the  most  perfect  pictures  of  married 
life  at  its  best.  Dorigen  and  Averagus  under- 
stand how  to  remain  lovers  all  their  lives  : — 

Heer  may  men  seen  an  humble  wys  accord ; 
Thus  hath  she  take  hir  servant  and  hir  lord, 
Servant  in  love,  and  lord  in  mariage ; 
Then  was  he  bothe  in  lordship  and  servage; 
Servage  ?  nay,  but  in  lordshipe  above 
Sith  he  hath  bothe  his  lady  and  his  love ; 
His  lady,  certes,  and  his  wyf  also. 
The  whiche  that  lawe  of  love  acordeth  to, 
(Frankeleyns  Tale,  11.  63-70.) 


HIS   CHARACTER-DRAWING     129 

The  passage  immediately  preceding  this,  with 
its  beautiful  picture  of  what  love  understands 
by  freedom,  is  too  long  to  quote  in  full,  but 
k  it  shows  clearly  enough  Chaucer's  conception 
of  the  relation  of  the  sexes.  To  talk  of 
mastery  is  absurd  : — 

Whan  maistrie  comth,  the  god  of  love  anon 
Beteth  his  winges,  and  farewel !    he  is  gon  ! 

True  love  learns  to  give  and  take  and  does 
not  demand  payment  for  every  wi'ong  : — 

Ire,  siknesse,  or  constellacioun,^ 
Wyn,  wo,  or  chaunginge  of  complexioun  ^ 
Causeth  ful  ofte  to  doon  amis  or  speken. 
On  every  wrong  a  man  may  nat  be  wreken.  . . 

and  the  great  lesson  of  married  life  is  patience  I 
and  tender  forbearance  in  such  moments  oU, 
weakness.  The  story  illustrates  the  text. 
Averagus  has  no  word  of  reproach  for  his 
wife  when  she  tells  him  what  she  has  done, 
and  Dorigen,  on  her  part,  shows  a  simple 
confidence  in  her  husband's  honour  which 
almost  makes  us  forget  the  impossible  absurdity 
of  the  situation.  After  all,  it  is  in  Chaucer's 
women  themselves,  rather  than  in  what  he 
says  about  woman,  that  we  see  his  attitude 
most  clearly.     In  the  character  of  Blanche 

1  i.  e.  an  unpropitious  conjunction  of  planets. 

2  L  e,  change  of  disposition. 


130      CHAUCER  AND   HIS  TIMES 

the  Duchesse  he  portrays  an  ideal  which 
differs  in  many  ways  from  the  conventional 
standard  of  the  day.  Instead  of  the  typical 
heroine  of  romance,  whose  sole  thought  is  of 
love  and  whose  sole  desire  that  her  knight  may 
prove  the  bravest  in  Christendom,  Chaucer 
draws  a  lively,  quick-witted  girl,  whose 
consciousness  of  her  own  power  and  simple 
delight  in  her  own  beauty  never  degenerate 
into  selfish  coquetry.  The  medieval  heroine 
considered  it  a  point  of  honour  to  set  her  lover 
impossible  tasks  to  perform  for  her  sake. 
Blanche  "  ne  used  no  such  knakkes  small." 
She  sees  no  sense  in  sending  a  man 

....  into  Walakye,^ 
To  Pruyse  and  in-to  Tartarye, 
To  Alisaundre,  ne  in-to  Turkye, 
And  bidde  him  faste,  annoo  that  he 
Go  hoodies  to  the  drye  see  ^ 
And  come  hoom  by  the  Carrenare ;  ^ 

and  telling  him  to  be 

....  right  ware 
That  I  may  of  yow  here  seyn  * 
Worship,  or  that  ye  come  ageyn. 

1  Wallacia. 

2  Possibly  this  refers  to  the  sea  of  sand  and  pebbles 
mentioned  by  Sir  John  Mandeville  in  his  Travels,  To  go 
bareheaded  was  considered  a  great  hardship. 

3  Probably  the  dangerous  guK  of  Quamaro  in  the 
Adriatic.  *  hear  tell. 


HIS   CHARACTER-DRAWING      131 

Nor  does  she  use  any  arts  to  enhance  her 
beauty.  She  looks  you  straight  in  the  face 
with  those  great  grey  eyes  of  hers  : — 

Debonair,  goode,  gladde,  and  sadde, 

and  offers  a  frank  friendship  to  all  "  gode 
folk."  She  utters  no  half  truths,  and  takes 
no  pleasure  in  deceit,  nor  was  there  ever 

.  .  .  through  hir  tonge 
Man  ne  woman  greatly  •  harmed. 

There  is  no  touch  of  pettiness  in  her  nature. 
One  of  the  most  delightful  passages  in  the 
poem  is  that  in  which  the  Black  Knight 
declares  how  ready  she  always  was  to  forgive 
and  forget : — 

Whan  I  had  wrong  and  she  the  right 
She  wolde  alwey  so  goodely 
For-geve  me  so  debonairly. 
In  alle  my  youthe  in  alle  chaunce 
She  took  me  in  hir  governaunce. 

At  the  same  time  she  "  loved  so  wel  hir  owne 
name  "  that  she  suffered  no  liberties  to  be 
taken  with  her  : — 

She  wrong  do  wolde  to  no  wight; 
and 

No  wight  might  do  her  no  shame. 
Through  the  whole  picture  there  breathes  a 


132      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

spirit  of  vigour  and  freshness  and  gaiety. 
Once  again  Chaucer  seems  to  foreshadow 
Shakespeare  :  Blanche  might  well  take  her 
place  beside  Rosalind  and  Portia  and  Beatrice, 
as  a  type  of  simple  unspoiled  girlhood.  Her 
frank  enjoyment  of  life,  her  keen  wit,  which 
knows  no  touch  of  malice,  her  combination 
of  tender-heartedness  and  strength  remind  us 
more  than  once  of  Shakespeare's  heroines, 
and  like  them  she  is  no  colourless  model  of 
propriety,  but  has  all  a  true  woman's  charm 
and  unexpectedness. 

No  other  of  Chaucer's  portraits  is  so  detailed, 
but  he  recurs  more  than  once  to  the  same  type. 
Emily  is  drawn  with  comparatively  few  strokes, 
but  she  gives  us  very  much  the  same  impression 
as  Blanche.  There  is  the  same  sense  of  the  open 
air,  the  same  simplicity  and  directness.  No- 
thing better  brings  out  the  peculiar  quality  of 
Chaucer's  heroine  than  a  comparison  between 
the  Emily  of  the  Knightes  Tale  and  the  Emily 
of  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  The  one  walks 
alone  in  the  garden,  gathering  flowers,  and 
singing  to  herself  for  sheer  lightness  of  heart. 
The  other  converses  with  her  waiting-woman, 
and  her  chief  interest  in  nature  lies  in  the 
hope  that  the  maid  may  prove  able  ''  to 
work  such  flowers  in  silk."     There  is  ^^^  T^^Qsnn 


HIS   CHARACTER-DRAWING      133 

why  the  second  Emily  should  not  wish  to  have 
an  embroidered  gown,  but  its  introduction 
here  at  once  destroys  the  freshness  and  sim- 
pHcity  of  the  picture.  Canace,  too,  deUghts 
in  wandering  in  the  forest  in  the  early  morning. 
She  is  so  closely  in  sympathy  with  nature  that 
it  seems  but  natural  that  she  should  under- 
stand bird-latin,  and  her  quick  sympathy  with 
the  unhappy  falcon  is  very  characteristic 
of  a  Chaucerian  heroine,  for  again  and  again 
he  tells  us 

That  pitee  renneth  sone  in  gentil  heart. 

It  is  a  pretty  picture  which  shows  the  king's 
daughter  gently  bandaging  the  wounded  bird 
upon  her  lap,  or  doing  "  hir  bisiness  and  al 
hir  might  "  to  gather  herbs  for  salves. 

Constance,  Griselda,  Dorigen  are  maturer 
and  more  developed.  They  are  women,  not 
girls,  and  women  who  have  lived  and  suffered, 
but  they  are  just  what  we  should  expect 
Blanche,  or  Emily,  or  Canace  to  develop  into. 
They  have  less  gaiety  and  light-heartedness, 
less  pretty  wilfulness  than  these  younger 
sisters  of  theirs,  but  they  have  the  same  frank- 
ness and  directness,  the  same  honesty  of 
mind.  They  meet  their  fate  with  grave 
serenity  and  simple  courage.     Griselda  aban- 


have  blocked.  Through  all 
vein  of  tenderness  which  si 
Griselda,  who  has  borne  so 
gives  vent  to  one  passiona 
when  she  is  bidden  to  mak 
wife,  a  cry  which  has  in  it  i 
clinging  to  the  memory  of  a 

O  gode  god  !  how  gentil 
Ye  semed  by  your  speche 
The  day  that  maked  was 

and  surely  no  direct  acci 

could  show  with  equal  clej 

she    has    suffered.     They 

women,    before    whose    inr 

persecutions  and  unjust  ace 

they  are  subjected  drop  in 

'     When  Chaucer  deliberately  sets  out  to  draw 

a  saint  instead  of  a  woman,  he  is  less  successful. 

Our  sympathies  are  with  Blanche,  as  she  sings 

and  dances  so  gaily,   rather  than  with  the 


HIS  CHARACTER-DRAWING     135 

preternaturally  pious  Virginia,  who  at  the  age 
of  twelve  often  feigns  sickness  in  order  to 

.  .  .  fleen  the  companye 
^  Wher  lykly  was  to  treten  of  folye,* 
As  is  at  f  estes,  revels,  and  at  daunces.  .  . 

Indeed  the  whole  of  the  Phisiciens  Tale  seems 
curiously  cold  and  lifeless.  There  is  a  touch 
of  nature  at  the  end  where  the  child,  forgetting 
her  piety,  flings  her  arms  round  her  father's 
neck,  and  asks  if  there  is  no  remedy,  and  again 
where  she  begs  him  to  smite  softly,  but  these 
are  not  enough  to  atone  for  the  perfunctoriness 
of  the  rest.  The  story  is  too  essentially  tragic 
for  the  barest  narration  of  it  not  to  make  some 
appeal  to  us,  but  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel 
that  Chaucer  was  either  hurried  or  working 
against  the  grain  when  he  wrote  his  version. 

The  Seconde  Nonnes  Tale  contains  even  less 
of  human  interest.  Cecilia  is  neither  more 
nor  less  than  the  mouthpiece  of  the  Christian 
religion,  and  the  miracles  that  she  works 
and  the  sermons  that  she  preaches  leave  the 
reader  unmoved.  The  music  of  the  verse  has 
a  charm  of  its  own,  and  Chaucer's  most  left- 
handed  work  is  yet  the  work  of  a  genius,  but 
a  comparison  of  Cecilia  with  Constance  soon 

^  Where  there  was  likely  to  be  foolish  behaviour. 


136      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

shows  the  difference  between  a  real  woman 
and  an  embodied  ideal.  The  miraculous 
element,  which  is  subordinated  to  the  human 
interest  in  the  Man  of  Lawes  Tale,  dominates 
the  whole  of  the  Seconde  Nonnes  Tale,  and  the 
inevitable  sameness  of  the  various  conversions 
further  detracts  from  its  vividness. 

In  Cressida  Chaucer  had  painted  a  woman 
of  the  butterfly  type.  In  the  Canterbury  Tales 
he  gives  us  a  certain  number  of  actually 
immoral  women,  such  as  Alisoun  and  May,  but 
he  paints  no  second  picture  of  pretty  helpless 
coquettishness.  The  heroines  of  the  less 
savoury  tales  are  coarser  in  fibre  and  for  the 
most  part  lower  in  the  social  scale  than  Calkas' 
daughter,  and  their  stories  are  of  mere  sensuous 
self-indulgence  with  none  of  the  charm  and 
poetry  which  marks  the  tale  of  Troilus  and 
Cressida.  One  character  alone  recalls  Chaucer's 
earlier  heroine.  The  Prioress  is  very  much 
what  a  fourteenth-century  Cressida  would  have 
been  if  her  friends  had  placed  her  in  a  convent 
instead  of  finding  her  a  husband.  She  has 
the  same  daintiness  and  trimness,  the  same 
superficial  tender-heartedness.  It  is  difficult 
to  imagine  that  her  sympathy,  like  Canace's, 
would  take  the  practical  form  of  applying 
salves  or  binding  up  wounds,  but : — 


HIS  CHARACTER-DRAWING     137 

She  was  so  charitable  and  so  pitous, 
She  wolde  wepe  if  that  she  sawe  a  mous 
Caught  in  a  trappe,  if  it  were  deed  or  bledde. 

Her  table  manners  are  excellent,  and  she  wears 
her  veil  with  an  air  : — 

Ful  semely  hir  wimpel  pinched  was. 

Her  silver  brooch,  with  its  Amor  vincit 
omnia^  betrays  a  naive  interest  in  her  personal 
appearance.  She  is  never  brought  into  con- 
tact with  the  more  passionate  side  of  life  as 
Cressida  is,  and  her  seclusion  from  the  world 
has  given  her  a  touch  of  primness  which  com- 
bines oddly  with  her  little  affectations.  The 
contrast  between  her  worldliness  and  that  of 
the  Monk  is  complete.  He  is  gross,  jovial, 
self-indulgent;  she  is  delicate,  mincing,  con- 
ventional. Like  Cressida  she  would  always 
follow  the  line  of  least  resistance,  though  it 
would  cause  her  genuine — if  but  momentary 
— distress  to  give  pain  to  anyone.  She  is 
too  well-bred  ever  to  think  for  herself,  and 
too  innocent  and  simple-minded  not  to  accept 
life  as  it  is  offered  her.  She  tells  her  story 
with  real  tenderness  and  feeling,  and  it  is 
evident  that  the  atmosphere  of  the  cloister 
in  no  wise  irks  her.  It  is  impossible  to  regard 
her  as  a  pattern  nun,  but  equally  impossible 


138      CHAUCER  AND   HIS   TIMES 

to  judge  her  harshly.  Both  she  and  Cressida 
have  something  childHke  about  them,  and  it 
seems  out  of  place  to  try  them  by  the  ordinary 
standards. 

Of  a  very  different  type  are  Chaucer's 
practical,  bustling  housewives,  amongst  whom 
the  Wife  of  Bath  and  Dame  Pertelote  stand 
pre-eminent.  The  Wife  of  Bath  is  a  capable, 
active,  pushing  woman,  with  plenty  of  courage 
and  plenty  of  self-confidence.  She  is  well-to- 
do  and  has  a  fitting  sense  of  her  own  dignity 
and  importance,  but  she  has  no  idea  of  letting 
dignity  stand  in  the  way  of  enjoyment,  and 
is  quite  ready  to  take  her  part  in  the  rough 
jests  of  the  company.  Comely  of  face  and 
plump  of  person,  she  dresses  well  and  is 
quite  prepared  to  make  the  most  of  her 
attractions.  The  prologue  to  her  tale  shows 
that  she  has  plenty  of  shrewd  mother-wit. 
Her  view  of  matrimony  is  characteristic. 
She  recognises  the  "  greet  perfeccioun  "  of 
celibacy,  but  since  all  men  and  women  are 
not  suited  to  such  a  life,  she  is  impatient  of 
the  idea  that  they  should  marry,  but  once, 
and  she  quotes  the  Scriptures  most  aptly 
for  her  purpose.  Her  present  husband  is 
her  fifth,  and  when  he  dies  she  has  every 
intention  of  marrying  again  : — 


HIS   CHARACTER-DRAWING      139 

"I  nil  envye  no  virginitee ;  " 

she  cries, , 

"  Let  hem  be  breed  of  pured  whete-seed, 
And  lat  us  wyves  hoten  barly-breed,"^ 

for  barley-bread  is  by  no  means  to  be  despised. 
In  fact  she  is  the  epitome  of  common-sense, 
and  her  confidence  in  her  own  opinion  enables 
her  to  bear  contradiction  good-humouredly 
enough.  Her  methods  with  her  various  hus- 
bands were  simple :  three  she  bullied  and 
brow-beat,  one  she  paid  back  in  his  own  coin. 
The  fifth,  who  had  the  sense  to  beat  her,  was 
the  only  one  for  whom  she  had  any  respect,  and 
even  he  had  finally  yielded  her 

.  .  .  the  governance  of  hous  and  lond 
And  of  his  tonge  and  of  his  hond  also. 

It  is  the  picture  of  a  violent,  coarse — but  not 
wholly  ill-natured — woman,  who  despises  book- 
ishness  and  thoroughly  enjoys  good  ale  and 
good  company.  She  has  no  morals  and  no 
ideals,  though  she  loves  to  go 

To  vigiles  and  to  processiouns, 

To  preching  eek,  and  to  thlse  pilgrimages. 

To  pleyes  of  miracles  and  mariages, 

but  her  genial  good-fellowship  makes   her  a 

pleasant  enough  companion. 

^  Let  them  be  bread  of  pure  wheat-flour, 
And  let  us  wives  be  called  barley-bread. 


140      CHAUCER  AND   HIS  TIMES 

/    Dame  Pertelote  is  drawn  with  even  greater 
^kill.     The  impatience  with  which  she  Hsteris 
^o  Chauntecleer's  account  of  his  dream  is  just 
(what  we  should  expect  of  a  sensible,  unim- 
j   ^ginative,    middle-class    woman,  whose    own 
j  /  nerves  and  digestion  were  in  excellent  order, 
( \  if  her  husband  came  to  her  with  a  long  story 
/  of    a    s.upernatural    warning.     Dreams,    she 
/    says,  are  the  natural   consequence   of   over- 
l     eating;    the  best  thing  he  can  do  is  to  take 
j     some  of  the  herbs  she  recommends,  and  when 
he  has  pecked  these  up,  "  right  as  they  growe  " 
and  "  etc  hem  in  "  he  will  find  all  his  nervous- 
ness and  depression  disappear.     Chauntecleer 
is  furious  at  being  treated  with  such  scant 
respect  and  proceeds  to  overwhelm  her  with 
examples  of  dreams  that  have  come  true.     His 
wise  wife,  who  knows  when  to  hold  her  tongue, 
makes  no  attempt  to  answer  him  back,  but 
is  evidently  only  too  thankful  when  at  last, 
being  convinced  that  he  has  established  his 
point,  he  suffers  his  attention  to  be  distracted 
and  turns  to  the  pleasanter  business  of  love- 
making.     Pertelote  is  in  fact  typical  of  the 
good  wives  of  her  class,  as  the  Wife  of  Bath  is 
of  the  bad.     She  is  no  more  a  heroine  than  the 
Wife  of  Bath  is  a  villainess,   but  the  one 
studies  her  husband's  comforts  and  thoroughly 


HIS   CHARACTER-DRAWING     141 

understands  how  to  make  him  happy,  while 
the  other  cares  for  nothing  but  her  own 
amusement.  Pertelote's  lamentations  when 
Chauntecleer  is  borne  off  are  in  the  ^  best 
taste.  Restraint  was  considered  no  virtue 
in  a  medieval  widow,  and  Pertelote  very 
properly  screams  loudly  and  persistently. 
Nor  does  wifely  affection  go  unrewarded. 
The  ''  sely  widwe  "  and  her  daughters  who 
own  the  hen-yard 

Herden  thise  hennes  cry  and  maken  wo, 
And  out  at  dores  steten  they  anoon, 

with  the  result  that  Chauntecleer  is  saved. 

It  is  this  power  of  making  characters  at  once 
typical  and  individual  which  marks  true 
dramatic  genius.  Browning's  men  and  women 
reveal  their  innermost  souls  to  us,  we  see  them 
with  a  passionate  vividness  which  is  almost 
startling  in  its  brilliancy,  but  all  the  while 
we  are  conscious  of  the  intensity  of  their 
individuality.  The  conspicuous  thing  about 
them  is  that  which  marks  them  out  from  the 
rest  of  the  world.  The  commonplace  novelist 
or  dramatist,  on  the  other  hand,  gives  us 
mere  types  of  vice  and  virtue.  Mr.  Jerome's 
gallery  of  Stageland  characters — the  hero, 
the  heroine,  the  comic  Irishman,  the  good  old 


142      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

man,  and  the  rest — is  scarcely  caricature.  It 
is  hardly  necessary  to  give  them  names,  the 
same  types  have  been  recurring  again  and  again 
for  many  a  long  year,  and  are  likely  to  continue 
to  recur  as  long  as  there  are  cheap  books 
and  cheap  theatres.  But  the  great  masters  of 
character-drawing  contrive  to  show  us  the 
individual  at  once  as  a  unit  and  as  part  of 
the  whole.  We  see  the  peculiar  idiosyn- 
crasies of  this  or  that  person,  and  we  are 
conscious,  not  only  of  a  subtle  bond  between 
ourselves  and  them  which  enables  us  to  see 
things  from  their  point  of  view,  but  of  their 
relation  to  human  nature  in  general  and  to 
their  own  class  in  particular. 


CHAPTER  V 

Chaucer's  humour 

Critics  may  be  divided  in  opinion^  asjtq^ 
Cfiaucer's  right  to  be  caJled  the  Father  of 
^gHsh  poetry,  but  there  can  be  no  question 
tjiat  he  is  the  first  great  Enghsh  humorist. 
As  far  back  as  Henry  Ill's  reign  fabHaux  had 
been  imported  from  France,  but  they  took 
no  real  root  in  Enghsh  soil,  and  though  their 
coarse  jests  and  indecent  situations  were 
fully  appreciated  by  thirteenth-  and  four- 
teenth-century readers,  they  never  rose  above 
the  level  of  collections  of  "  merrie  tales " 
and  made  no  pretensions  to  originality  or 
literary  style.  The  same  stories  were  re- 
peated again  and  again,  with  slight  variations, 
and  are  often  to  be  found  in  Indian  or  Arabian 
versions  as  well  as  in  French  and  English. 
Chaucer  alone,  showed  that  it  was  possible 
to  see  in  them  a  revelation  of  human  nature. 
The  romances,  as  has  been  said,  were  far 
more  French  than  English,  and,  even  so, 
comparatively  few  of  them  show  any  flicker 
of  humour.  Aucassin  and  Nicolette  stands 
143 


144      CHAUCER  AND   HIS  TIMES 

out  as  a  conspicuous  exception,  but  this  is 
pure  French,  and  the  more  EngHsh  romances, 
such  as  Guy  of  Warwick  or  Eevis  of  Hampton, 
take  everything  with  intense  seriousness.  It 
is  true  that  the  Continental  animal  epic  had 
begun  to  make  its  influence  felt  in  England, 
but  it  was  still  the  Continental  epic:  it  be- 
longed to  the  days  of  literary  free-trade  before 
the  national  spirit  made  itself  felt  in  literature. 
Satire,  .it  is  true,  had  long  since  made  its 
appearance  in  England,  but  except  for  rude 
popular  rhymes  and  an  occasional  poem 
of  greater  pretensions  —  such  as  the  Land 
of  Cohaygne — it  was  in  Latin,  and  had 
nothing  distinctively  English  about  it.  In 
the  Miracle  Plays,  it  is  true,  we  find  that 
mixture  of  shrewd  common-sense  and  real 
feeling,  of  comedy  and  tragedy,  which  we 
are  accustomed  to  regard  as  characteristically 
English,  but  though  they  had  been  popular 
in  England  for  many  years  before  Chaucer 
began  to  write,  the  best  of  them  date  from 
the  fifteenth  century,  and  the  comic  element 
in  the  earlier  plays  seems  chiefly  to  have 
consisted  in  rough-and-tumble  farce.  It  was 
left  for  Chaucer  to  show  the  true  meaning 
and  value  of  the  comic  point  of  view,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  embody  the  characteristics 


CHAUCER'S  HUMOUR  145 

of  a  nation  which  had  but  recently  awakened 
to  the  consciousness  of  its  own  individuahty. 
f  To  say  that  humour  is  the  most  subtle  andt 
illusive  of  qualities,  is  to  utter  a  truism.' 
Certain  situations  are  in  themselves  neces- 
sarily and  essentially  tragic.  The  slaying  of 
parent  by  child,  or  child  by  parent;  a  great 
shipwreck  involving  terrible  loss  of  life; 
any  sudden  and  overwhelming  catastrophe, 
must  always  bring  with  it  a  sense  of  horror. 
But  jcomedy  depends  on  point  of  view  rather 
than  on  situation.  An  absurdity  of  dress 
or  manner  which  would  cause  us  to  smile 
under  norriial  circumstances,  would  cease  to 
be  amusing  if  it  indicated  dangerous  in- 
sanity :  a  man  falling  off  the  roof  of  a  house 
might  go  into  the  most  ridiculous  attitudes 
without  in  the  least  stirring  the  spectator's 
sense  of  humour.  It  is  this  which  makes  it 
difficult  to  accept  Professor  Bergson's  most 
interesting  and  suggestive  theory  of  the  me- 
chanical nature  of  comedy  as  wholly  satisfac- 
tory. And  again,  while  such  tragic  incidents 
as  have  been  suggested  appeal  to  every  normal 
human  being,  what  amuses  one  person  may 
leave  another  absolutely  untouched.  We  all 
know  the  blank  sensation  of  having  our  best 
story  received  with  stony  politeness,  and  the 

K 


146      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

despair  of  trying  to  explain  a  joke.  Certain 
things,  however,  do  appeal  in  greater  or  less 
degree  to  the  majority  of  people,  and  among 
these  is  the  element  of  unexpectedness.  The 
whole  point  of  the  modern  musical  comedy 
consists  in  making  the  actor  behave  as  no 
sane  person  ever  dreamed  of  behaving  in 
actual  life.  If  it  were  the  fashion  to  enter 
a  room  in  a  series  of  cart-wheels  we  should 
see  nothing  funny  in  it.  The  audience  roars 
with  laughter  when  the  elderly  gentleman 
sits  on  his  hat,  because  hats  are  not  in- 
tended to  be  used  as  cushions.  Nor  is  this 
element;  of  unexpectedness  confined  to  mere 
farce.  It  constitutes  more  than  half  the 
point  of  a  brilliant  repartee  or  play  upon 
words.  The  child's  misuse  of  terms  is  amus- 
ing because  it  suggests  something  which 
would  never  have  occurred  to  us.  And  it  is 
this  which  underlies  the  assertion  that  humour 
consists  in  incongruity.  True  humour,  how- 
ever, contains  far  more  than  this.  If  comedy 
plays  on  the  surface  of  life,  its  greatest 
exponents  bring  home  to  us  the  fact  that 
that  surface  covers  a  depth.  It  is  no  accident 
that  causes  Shakespeare's  comedies  to  deepen 
in  tone  until  they  become  well-nigh  indis^ 
tinguishable    from    tragedies,    or   that   leads 


CHAUCER'S  HUMOUR  147 

Chaucer  to  introduce  a  Pandarus  into  the 
tragedy  of  Troilus  and  Criseyde.  Comedy  has 
a  double  value.  It  is  amusing,  and  it  is  also 
a  bond  which  connects  us  with  everyday  life. 
It  keeps  tragedy  from  soaring  into  worlds 
peopled  exclusively  by  heroes  and  heroines, 
of  almost  superhuman  greatness,  and  romance' 
from  dwelling  wholly  in  a  land  of  faery.  Had 
the  poets  of  the  Restoration  ever  dared  to 
view  their  heroes  from  the  comic  point  of 
\dew  we  should  have  been  spared  the  bom- 
bastic grandiloquence  of  their  Almanzors  and 
Osmyns.  Had  Rosalind  no  sense  of  humour, 
were  Touchstone  and  Jaques  non-existent, 
As  You  Like  It  might  still  be  a  charming 
forest  idyll,  but  it  would  cease  to  have  any 
hint  of  realism. 

Chaucer's  comedy  touches  both  extremes  : 
it  includes  the  most  elementary,  and  the  most 
subtle  forms,  and  though  he  never  rises  to  the- 
height  of  the  great  Shakespearean  dramas,  he 
does  reveal  possibilities  hitherto  undreamed 
of  in  English  literature.  For  the  sake  of 
clearness  it  may  be  well  to  consider  his  comedy 
under  four  heads  :  farce,  wit,  satire,  humour 
proper. 

(1)  Farce, — Farce  may  be  defined  as  that 
form  of  comedy  which  makes  least  appeal  to 


148      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

the  intelligence,  which  is,  in  fact,  almost 
wholly  physical.  An  imbecile  may  be  incap- 
able of  realising  that  there  is  anything  unusual 
in  wearing  straws  in  one's  hair  and  therefore 
may  not  find  the  spectacle  amusing,  but  it 
needs  but  a  very  low  order  of  intelligence  to 
appreciate  such  physical  peculiarity — hence 
the  popularity  of  costume  songs,  and  panto- 
mime generally,  which  call  for  no  mental 
effort  on  the  part  of  the  audience.  But  while 
farce  is  undoubtedly  the  lowest  form  of 
comedy,  it  does  not  necessarily  follow  that 
it  is  to  be  despised.  The  greatest  authors 
do  not  disdain  to  make  use  of  it,  only  they 
keep  it  subordinate  to  other  interests.  Shake- 
speare contrives  to  blend  farce  with  character- 
study  in  a  way  that  is  truly  marvellous. 
Falstaff's  fatness  is  eminently  farcical,  and 
yet  it  is  something  more — a  starveling  Sir 
John  would  be  a  wholly  different  person.  It 
is  farce  touched  with  humour.  Dogberry 
and  Verges  are  of  a  different  species  from  the 
comic  policeman  of  musical  comedy. 

In  Chaucer  we  find  both  forms  of  farce. 
The  "sely  carpenter"  of  the  Milleres  Tale 
provides  plenty  of  incident  well  suited  to 
tickle  the  most  elementary  sense  of  the  comic. 
The  picture  of  the  unfortunate  John  victual- 


CHAUCER'S  HUMOUR  149 

ling  his  tub  in  readiness  for  a  second  edition 
of  Noah's  flood,  and  sitting  in  it,  slung  up 
to  the  ceiling,  "  away  tinge  on  the  reyn,"  is 
irresistibly  funny,  and  it  is  easy  to  fancy 
the  delight  of  the  audience  when,  thinking 
the  flood  has  come,  he  cuts  the  cord  and  comes 
bumping  on  to  the  floor;  for  the  truest  farce 
of  all  is  the  practical  joke  which  makes  some- 
one else  ridiculous.  All  the  coarser  tales 
are  full  of  such  episodes.  It  would  make  no 
difference  if  the  incidents  were  transferred 
from  one  tale  to  another,  they  have  no  subtle 
connection  with  the  personality  of  those  in- 
volved in  them;  the  absurdity  lies  in  the 
actual  situation,  and  is  exactly  on  a  level 
with  the  rough-and-tumble  fights  between 
Noah  and  his  wife,  which  proved  so  popular 
in  the  Miracle  Plays,  or  the  tossing  of  Mak  in 
a  blanket  in  the  well-known  Townley  Mystery. 
The  portrait  of  the  drunken  Cook  contains 
farce  of  a  somewhat  higher  order.  He. is  a 
most  unattractive  person,  and  from  any 
other  point  of  view  would  be  merely  repulsive. 
But  humour,  while  it  cuts  through  false 
sentiment,  not  infrequently  softens  down  the 
harsher  lines  in  a  character.  There  is  no 
bitterness  in  true  laughter ;  we  cannot  wholly 
despise   what    amuses    us.     In    a   tract   the 


150      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Cook  and  the  Wife  of  Bath,  the  Friar  and  the 
Pardoner,  would'  serve  as  awful  warnings. 
In  the  Canterbury  Tales  they  show  an  extra- 
ordinary power  of  disarming  criticism  and 
worming  themselves  into  our  affections : — 

The  Cook  of  London,  whyl  the  Reve  spak. 
For  joye,  him  thoughte,  he  clawed  him  on 
the  bak. 

He  is  a  genial  rascal  after  all,  and  we  almost 
resent  his  having  so  unfortunately  appropriate 
a  name  as  Hogge.  When  he  falls  asleep  as 
he  rides  and  rolls  off  his  horse  our  sympathies 
are  with  him,  though  we  fully  appreciate  the 
force  of  the  Maunciple's  plea  that  he  shall 
not  be  permitted  to  tell  his  tale.  The  picture 
of  the  rest  of  the  pilgrims  shoving  him  to  and 
fro  in  their  efforts  to  mount  him  again,  is 
farce  of  the  simplest  and  most  primitive 
kind,  but  Roger  himself  is  a  live  man,  not  a 
mere  occasion  of  mirth  in  others. 
;  The  Wyf  of  Bath,  again,  is  a  foul-mouthed, 
coarse-grained  woman,  selfish  and  self- 
indulgent.  Her  prologue  shows  an  amazing 
ignorance  of  the  meaning  of  clean  living,  and 
her  piety  merely  serves  as  an  excuse  for  seeing 
the  world.  Yet  such  is  the  power  of  the 
comic  point  of  view  that  it  is  quite  impossible 
to  judge  her  from  the  conventional  moral 


CHAUCER'S  HUMOUR  151 

standpoint.  Comedy  lays  stress  on  her 
good-humour  and  her  sense,  and,  above  all, 
on  her  power  of  amusing  the  company. 
Compare  her  for  one  moment  with  Mrs.  Sinclair 
in  Clarissa,  or  the  old  hag  in  Dombey  and  Son, 
and  the  effect  produced  by  comic  treatment 
at  once  becomes  evident.  It  is  not  that  it 
dulls  our  moral  sense,  but  it  gives  us  a  peculiar 
tolerance  of  its  own.  Instead  of  judging  all 
men  from  our  own  particular  plane,  we  learn- 
to  see  these  illiterate  and  common  folk  as 
they  see  each  other,  and  we  find  them  extra-^ 
ordinarily  human  after  all. 

(2)  Wit. — Wit  is  the  intellectual  counter- 
part of  farce.  Farce  at  its  lowest  is  actually 
physical — the  jester  trips  his  victim  up, 
'Arry  and  'Arriet  exchange  hats — and  at  its 
highest  consists  in  physical  absurdity.  Wit 
appeals  as  much  to  a  blind  man  as  to  one 
who  can  see.  In  neither  case  has  the  comic 
element  any  necessary  connection  with  the 
characters  of  those  concerned.  Farce,  as  we 
have  seen,  may  be  combined  with  humour, 
and  wit  may  gain  an  added  keenness  from 
our  knowledge  of  the  witty  person,  but  in 
their  simplest  form  neither  depends  on  any 
such  connection.  A  man  chasing  his  hat  is 
a  funny  sight,  quite  apart  from  our  having 


152      CHAUCER  AND   HIS  TIMES 

any  idea  of  who  he  is.  Any  additional 
element  of  humour  which  may  be  added  by 
the  fact  that  it  is  Mr.  So-and-so,  who  prides 
himself  on  his  dignified  deportment,  is  not 
purely  farcical.  In  like  manner,  a  brilliant 
repartee  is  amusing,  though  we  may  have  no 
notion  -  who  uttered  it :  in  fact,  not  infre- 
quently the  same  story  is  told,  with  equal 
effect,  about  two  or  more  different  men.  At 
the  same  time  a  remark,  witty  in  itself,  often 
gains  additional  force  from  its  context,  and 
in  certain  cases  the  chief  point  depends  on 
the  setting.  The  wit-traps  so  beloved  by 
Restoration  comedy  writers,  of  which  George 
Meredith  speaks  in  his  Essay  on  Comedy,  are 
typical  examples  of  pure  wit.  It  does  not 
matter  in  the  least  by  whom  the  remark  is 
made  :  the  actual  verbal  sword-play  is  in 
itself  amusing.  Frequently  such  dialogue 
does  nothing  whatever  to  help  on  the  plot. 
Its  wit  is  in  itself  sufficient  to  justify  its 
existence.  Shakespeare,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  extraordinarily  few  passages  which  can 
be  detached  from  the  play  in  which  they 
occur,  and  quoted  as  essentially  amusing. 
Falstaff's  jests  without  Falstaft  lose  all  their 
savour,  and  the  wit  of  a  Rosalind  or  a  Beatrice 
is  too  intimate  a  part  of  her  personality  for 


CHAUCER'S  HUMOUR  153 

the  two  to  be  divorced.  Millament's  brilliant 
jests  are  scintillating  jewels  of  wit.  The  wit 
of  Shakespeare's  heroines  is  a  facet  of  their 
character. 

Drama  naturally  affords  more  scope  for 
the  display  of  wit  than  does  narrative  poetry. 
That  Chaucer  is  witty  is  undeniable,  but  his 
wit  shows  itself  chiefly  in  sly  comments  and 
parentheses,  or  in  the  adroit  use  of  an  un- 
expected simile.  His  dry  comment  on  the 
probable  fate  of  Arcite's  soul ;  the  parenthesis 
which  tells  us  how  small  is  the  number  of 
those  who  having  done  well  desire  to  hide 
their  good  deeds;  the  eagle's  complaint,  in 
the  Hous  of  Fame 9  that  the  poet  is  "  noyous 
for  to  carie  " ;  Placebo's  explanation  of  the 
reason  why  he  has  never  yet  quarrelled  with 
any  lord  of  "  heigh  estaat,"  are  good  examples 
of  the  former  method.  Detached  from  their 
context,  there  is  little  or  nothing  in  any  of 
them  to  raise  a  smile.  They  contain  no  play 
upon  words,  nothing  intrinsically  amusing. 
But  in  their  proper  setting  they  cause  that 
pleasant  shock  which  breeds  laughter;  they 
give  a  sudden  whimsical  turn  to  the  thought. 

The  Nonne  Preestes  Tale  illustrates,  not  only 
Chaucer's  comic  use  of  simile,  but,  what  is 
^closely  allied  to  this,  the  comic  effect  pro- 


154      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

duced  by  speaking  of  one  thing  in  terms  of 
another.  The  mock-heroic  effect  produced 
by  the  learning  of  Chauntecleer  and  the 
weight  of  the  illustrations  which  he  adduces 
in  support  of  his  faith  in  dreams,  is  inimitable. 
This  cock  quotes  Josephus  and  Macrobius  and 
Cato  with  such  pompous  gravity  that  he 
almost  persuades  us  to  share  his  own  sense 
of  his  importance.  The  grave  disquisition 
on  predestination  and  free-will  which  prefaces 
the  account  of  his  untoward  fate  has  an  irre- 
sistibly comic  effect.  This  is,  however,  not 
purely  comic.  It  is  characteristic  of  Chaucer 
that  he  should  treat  a  matter  which  was 
evidently  much  in  his  thoughts,  in  this  half- 
ironic  manner.  The  comparison  of  the 
bereaved  Pertelote  to  "  Hasdrubales  wyf," 
and  her  sister  hens  to  the  wives  of  the  senators 
of  Rome 

— whan  that  Nero  brende  ^  the  citee — 
is  no  less  effective.  The  whole  story  indeed 
is  treated  consistently  from  the  comic  point 
of  view,  and  while  here  again  there  is  nothing 
inherently  funny  in  detached  passages,  wit 
Jights  up  the  poem  from  end  to  end. 

(3)  Satire, — Satire  differs  from  farce  or  wit 
in  that  it  has  a  definite  moral  purpose. 
^  burned. 


CHAUCER'S  HUMOUR  155 

It  is  our  purpose,  Crites,  to  correct 
And  punish  with  our  laughter  .  .  . 

says  Mercury  in  Cynthia^ s  Revels.  The  satirist 
dehberately  alienates  our  sympathies  from 
those  whom  he  describes,  and  as  the  true 
humorist  is  apt  to  pass  from  comedy  to 
romance,  and  from  romance  to  tragedy,  so 
the  satirist  not  infrequently  ends  by  finding 
rage  and  disgust  overpower  his  sense  of  the 
ridiculous.  Ben  Jonson  passes  from  the 
comedy  of  Every  Man  in  his  Humour  to  the 
bitterness  of  Volpone,  Swift  from  the  com- 
parative lightness  of  Gulliver  in  Lilliput,  to 
the  savage  brutality  of  the  Hounyhymns. 
Of  satire  pure  and  simple  few  examples  are 
to  be  found  in  Chaucer.  The  Hous  of  Fame 
is  indeed  satiric  in  conception,  and  certain 
of  the  pictures  it  contains  are  decidedly 
effective.  The  fourteenth-century  equivalent 
of  the  game  of  Russian  Scandal  which  it 
describes,  has  already  been  noticed.  No  less 
ironic  is  the  account  of  the 

shipmen  and  pilgrymes 
With  scrippes  bret-ful  of  lesinges 
Entremedled  with  tydinges,^ 

whom  the  poet  meets  in  the  house  of  Rumour. 

*  With  scrips  cramf  ul  of  lies 
Intermixed  with  news. 


156      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

But  the  poem  as  a  whole  is  so  lengthy  and  so 
much  of  it  is  occupied  with  the  description 
of  symbols,  references  to  classical  mythology, 
and  other  equally  serious  matters,  that  the 
more  witty  portions  stand  out  conspicuously, 
and  the  reader  is  apt  to  find  some  difficulty 
in  seeing  the  various  parts  in  their  proper 
relation.  Successful  satire  must  ever  keep 
its  object  in  view.  The  Hous  of  Fame  is  too 
discursive  to  be  really  effective  as  a  whole. 

The  fact  is  that  satire  is  not  Chaucer's 
natural  bent.  He  is  too  quick-witted  not  to 
see  through  sham  and  humbug,  but  his  interest 
lies  in  portraiture  rather  than  in  exposure. 
His  object  is  to  paint  life  as  he  sees  it,  to  hold 
up  the  mirror  to  nature,  and,  as  has  justly 
been  said,  "  a  mirror  has  no  tendency,"  it 
reflects,  but  it  does  not,  or  should  not,  dis- 
tort. In  two  cases  only  does  Chaucer  de- 
fliberately  draw  a  one-sided  picture,  and  both 
^are  topical  skits,  too  slight  to  regard  as  satire 
proper.  The  Compleint  of  Mars,  which  is  not 
specially  witty  or  amusing  in  itself,  is  said  to 
have  been  written  at  the  expense  of  my  lady 
of  York  and  the  Earl  of  Huntingdon,  but  any 
savour  whijch  the  jest  may  once  have  had, 
has  long  since  passed  away.  The  rhyme  of 
Sir  Thopas  has  already  been  noticed  as  a 


CHAUCER'S  HUMOUR  157 

good-natured    parody    of    the    conventional 
romance. 

But  if  Chaucer  is  too  tolerant  and  genial, 
too  little  of  a  preacher  and  enthusiast,  for  a 
satirist,  enough  has  already  been  said  to\ 
show  that  his  wit  has  often  a  satiric  turn,  i 
The  student  of  the  Canterbury  Tales  is  often 
reminded  of  the  worth  of  another  great  English 
humorist.  Chaucer  and  Fielding  are  alike 
in  a  certain  air  of  rollicking  good-fellowship, 
a  certain  virility,  a  determination  to  paint 
men  and  women  as  they  know  them.  Neither 
is  particularly  squeamish,  both  enjoy  a  rough 
jest,  and  have  little  patience  with  over- 
refinement.  Both  give  one  a  sense  of  sturdy 
honesty  and  kindliness,  and  know  how  to 
combine  tenderness  with  strength.  Both, 
with  all  their  tolerance,  have  a  keen  eye  for 
hypocrisy  or  affectation  and  a  sharp  tongue 
wherewith  to  chastise  and  expose  it.  Chaucer 
hates  no  one,  not  even  the  Pardoner,  as  whole- 
heartedly as  Fielding  hates  Master  Blifil,  but 
the  Pardoners  Tale  affords  the  best  instancy 
of  the  satiric  bent  of  the  poet's  humour  wheni 
he  is  brought  face  to  face  with  a  scheming 
rogue. 

The  Host,  who  has  been  much  moved  by 
the   piteous   tale   of   Virginia,   turns   to  the 


158     CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Pardoner  for  something  to  remove  its  de- 
pressing influence: — 

"  Or  but  I  here  anon  a  mery  tale.'' 
he  cries, 

"  Myn  herte  is  lost  for  pitee  of  this  mayde. 
Thou  belamy,^  thou  Pardoner,"  he  seyde, 
'*  Tel  us  som  mirthe  or  japes  ^  right  anon." 

The  Pardoner  is  ready  enough  to  oblige,  as 
soon  as  he  has  called  at  the  inn  they  are 
passing  and  has  eaten  and  drunk.  But  it 
is  noteworthy  that  the  pilgrims,  who  have 
listened  to  the  Miller's  tale  without  a  murmur, 
are  nervous  as  to  what  the  Pardoner's  idea  of 
a  merry  tale  may  be.  With  one  voice  they 
protest : — 

"  Nay  !  lat  him  telle  us  of  no  ribaudye;  ' 
Tell  us  som  moral  thing,  that  we  may  lere  * 
Som  wit,  and  thanne  wol  we  gladly  here." 

To  the  Pardoner  it  is  all  one.  Practised 
speaker  as  he  is,  a  comic  story  or  a  sermon 
comes  equally  readily  to  his  lips,  and  he 
promises  with  ready  good-nature,  though  he 
begs  for  a  moment  for  reflection : — 

"  I  graunte,  y-wis,"  quod  he,  ''  but  I  moste 

thinke 
Up-on  som  honest  thing,  whylthat  I  dririke." 

*  bel  ami,  fair  friend.       ^  j^g^,      s  ribaldry.        *  learn. 


CHAUCER'S  HUMOUR  159 

Of  their  insinuations  as  to  the  kind  of  tale 
he  is  Hkely  to  tell  if  left  to  himself,  he  takes 
not  the  slightest  notice.  His  tongue  loosened 
by  the  ale,  he  begins  with  a  cynical  confession 
of  his  methods  as  a  popular  preacher. 

"  Lordings,"  quod  he,  "in^chirches  whan  I 

preche 
I  peyne  me  to  han  an  hauteyn  ^  speche, 
And  ringe  it  out  as  round  as  gooth  a  belle, 
For  I  can  al  by  rote  that  I  telle.^ 
My  theme  is  alwey  oon,  and  ever  was— 
'  Radix  malorum  est  Cupiditas.^  " 

Having  thus  warned  his  hearers  against  the 
love  of  money,  he  proceeds  to  show  his 
credentials,  sprinkling  a  few  Latin  terms  here 
and  there  in  his  speech : — 

"  To  saffron  with  my  predicacioun  ^ 
And  for  to  stire  men  to  devocioun,'* 

and  then  shows  his  relics,  the  shoulder-bone 
of  "  an  holy  Jewes  shepe,"  a  miraculous  mitten 
which  will  cause  the  crops  of  the  man  who 
wears  it  to  increase  manifold : — 

"  By  this  gaude  have  I  wonne,  yeer  by  yeer. 
An  hundred  mark  sith  I  was  Pardoner  " — 

a  pillow-case,  which  he  swears  is  our  Lady's 

*  take  trouble  to  speak  loudly. 

^  ».  e.  I  have  all  my  sermon  by  heart. 

'  Wherewith  to  colour  my  sermon. 


160      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

veil,  etc.,  etc.  After  this  he  preaches  a 
vehement  sermon  against  avarice,  the  object 
of  which,  he  frankly  explains,  is 

*' for  to  make  hem  free 

To  yeve  her  pens,  and  namely  unto  me. 
For  my  entente  is  nat  but  for  to  winne, 
And  no-thing  for  correccioun  of  sinne. 
I  rekke  never,  whan  that  they  ben  beried, 
Though  that  her  soules  goon  a-blakeberied."  ^ 

If  anyone  has  offended  him,  he  takes  care  so  to 
point  at  him  in  what  he  says  that  the  reference 
is  unmistakable  and  the  whole  congregation 
understands  who  it  is  that  is  being  denounced : — 

"  Thus  quyte  I  folk  that  doon  us  displeas- 
ances." 

In  fact,  the  whole  object  of  his  preaching  is 
neither  more  nor  less  than  the  amassing  of 
money : — 

"  Therfore  my  theme  is  yet,  and  ever  was— 
'  Radix  malorum  est  Cupiditas.^ 

For  I  wol  preche  and  begge  in  sondry  londes ; 
I  wol  not  do  no  labour  with  myn  hondes 

I  wol  have  money,  wolle,  chese,  and  whete, 
Al  were  it  yeven  of  the  poorest  page, 
Or  of  the  poorest  widwe  in  a  village." 

*  If  their  souls  go  blackberrying,  i.  e.  I  do  not  caro 
where  they  go. 


CHAUCER'S  HUMOUR  161 

No  wonder  that 

Up-on  a  day  he  gat  him  more  moneye 

Than  that  the  person  ^  gat  in  monthes  tweye. 

After  this  shameless  confession,  the  Pardoner 
offers  to  relate  one  of  the  moral  tales  which 
he  has  found  most  efficacious  in  cajoling 
money  out  of  unwilling  pockets. 

In  Flaundres  whylom  was  a  companye 
Of  yonge  folk,  that  haunteden  f olye  ^  .  .  . 

thus  he  begins,  and  so  moved  is  he  with  the 
thought  of  the  folly  of  these  young  people 
that,  with  his  own  lips  scarce  dry  from  their 
last  draught  of  corny  ale,  he  proceeds  to 
denounce  gluttony  and  drunkenness  in  no 
measured  terms.  It  is  an  admirable  sermon, 
full  of  apt  illustrations  and  appropriate 
references  to  the  Bible.  It  enables  us  to 
see,  at  the  outset,  how  the  preacher  succeeds 
in  dominating  his  illiterate  audiences  when  he 
speaks  in  the  village  churches.  Having  got 
well  into  his  stride,  the  Pardoner  passes  on 
to  the  promised  tale.  Among  the  riotous 
company  are  three  young  men.  One  day, 
as  they  sit  drinking  in  a  tavern,  they  hear 
the  bell  toll,  and  sending  a  servant  to  inquire 
the  cause,  they  learn  that  Death  has  carried 
^  t.  c.  curate  of  the  parish.  *  practised  folly. 


162      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

away  one  of  their  companions.  With  pot- 
vaUant  courage  they  declare  their  intention 
of  seeking  out  and  slaying  this  false  traitor 
Death,  and  without  more  ado  set  forth  on 
the  quest.  An  old  man,  whom  they  meet 
by  the  way,  tells  them  that  Death  is  to  be 
found  in  a  neighbouring  grove,  under  a 
tree : — 

And  everich  of  thise  ryotoures  ran 
Til  he  cam  to  that  tree,  and  ther  they  founde 
Of  florins  fyne  of  golde  y-coyned  rounde 
Wei  ny  an  eighte  busshels,  as  hem  thoughte. 

The  sight  effectually  puts  Death  out  of  their 
minds.  They  decide  that  the  treasure  must 
be  hidden,  and  since  it  will  be  well  to  wait 
for  darkness  before  venturing  to  remove  it, 
they  draw  lots  to  determine  which  of  them 
shall  run  to  the  town  for  meat  and  drink, 
while  the  other  two  keep  guard.  The  lot 
falls  on  the  youngest,  but  no  sooner  has  he 
gone  than  the  two  who  remain  plot  to  murder 
him  when  he  comes  back,  since  there  will  be 
the  more  gold  for  them  if  he  is  out  of  the  way. 
The  youngest  also  thinks  it  a  pity  to  divide 
such  wealth  by  three,  and  having  reached 
the  town  he  goes  to  an  apothecary  and 
demands 


CHAUCER'S  HUMOUR  163 

Som  poyson,  that  he  mighte  his  rattes  quelle.^ 

He  then  buys  three  bottles,  puts  poison  in 
two  and  reserves  the  third  for  his  own  use. 
On  his  return  he  is  slain  by  the  other  two. 

And  whan  that  this  was  doon,  thus  spak  that 

oon, 
"  Now  lat  us  sitte  and  drinke,  and  make  us  merie 
And  afterward  we  wol  his  body  berie." 

Thus  all  three  find  Death  where  they  sought 
him. 

The  story  is  told  with  considerable  force.  ^ 
The  action  moves  quickly,  and  there  is; 
enough  grim  suggestiveness  to  stix  the  hearer's' 
imagination  without  the  detail  being  in  any 
way  overloaded.  The  picture  of  the  old 
man  vainly  seeking  death  as  he  strikes  his 
staff  upon  the  ground  and  cries :  "  Leve 
moder,  leet  me  in " ;  the  brief  dialogue 
between  the  two  roisterers  in  the  wood ;  the 
description  of  the  thoughts  that  chase  each 
other  through  the  mind  of  the  third  as  he 
runs,  all  show  a  power  of  vivid  dramatic 
presentation.  It  is  not  in  the  least  such 
a  tale  as  the  pilgrims  expect  from  the 
Pardoner.  The  poor  Parson  himself  could 
point  no  better  moral.  And  it  ends  with 
(of  all  things  1)  an  impassioned  appeal  against 
1  kUl. 


164      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

avarice.  The  Pardoner  has  fallen  uncon- 
sciously into  his  professional  manner.  Carried 
away  by  his  own  eloquence,  he  forgets  that 
he  began  by  explaining  the  trick  of  the  whole 
i  thing.  No  doubt,  as  he  himself  had  said,  he 
has  used  the  tale  often  enough  as  a  means  of 
extorting  money,  and  with  the  most  convinc- 
ing fervour  he  begs  the  pilgrims — with  his 
confession  fresh  in  their  minds — to  beware 
of  covetousness,  and  to  press  forward  and 
make  their  offerings  to  his  holy  relics,  v  So 
naturally  have  we  been  led  on  step  by  step, 
so  easily  has  he  passed  from  cynicism  to 
sermon,  and  from  sermon  to  applicatiorL, 
that  it  is  something  of  a  shock  when  the  Host, 
instead  of  hastening  to  kiss  the  relics  as  he  is 
bidden,  responds  to  the  invitation  with  a 
coarse  jest.  The  anger  of  the  Pardoner  at 
this  indignity  is  explicable  only  on  the  ground 
that  he  was  so  consummate  an  actor  that  he 
had  literally  forgotten  himself  in  his  part. 
A  hypocrite  he  undoubtedly  is,  but  not  the 
crude,  deliberate  hypocrite  whom  the  later 
satirists  of  the  Puritans  delighted  to  draw, 
nor  even  the  Pecksniffian  hypocrite  who, 
while  he  retains  his  mask,  even  in  private, 
never  loses  consciousness  of  the  fact  that  it 
is  a  mask;    he  has  something  of  the  artistic 


CHAUCER'S   HUMOUR  165 

temperament,  and  his  failure  to  impress  the 
pilgrims  gives  him  a  real,  though  momentary, 
jar.  The  subtle  irony  with  which  the  whole 
picture  is  drawn  is  perfect  in  its  restraint. 
The  vulgar  rogue  is  sufficiently  represented  by 
the  Friar.  The  Pardoner  is  of  higher  in- 
telligence, and  while  we  condemn  him  we 
recognise  his  ability. 

The  suggestion  that  the  various  birds  in  the 
Parlement  of  Foules  represent  courtiers  of  the 
day,  has  already  been  noticed.  If  it  is  true, 
the  satire  is  of  so  genial  and  playful  a  kind 
that  even  the  goose  can  scarcely  have  been 
hurt  by  it.  More  than  once  Chaucer  draws 
an  amusing  picture  of  a  gossiping,  foolish 
crowd,  but  while  it  is  evident  that  he  has  no 
very  high  opinion  of  the  intelligence  of  people 
in  the  mass,  there  is  no  trace  of  bitterness  in 
his  descriptions.  The  well-meaning  busybodies 
who  come  to  comfort  Criseyde  are  as  helplessly 
incompetent  as  "  the  goos,  the  cokkow,  and 
the  doke,"  but  though  fussy  and  self-centred, 
they  have  too  much  real  kindliness  for  it  to 
be  possible  not  to  feel  a  certain  affection  for 
them.  Perhaps  the  best  of  all  Chaucer's 
crowds  is  that  in  the  Squieres  Tale  which 
gathers  to  look  at  the  horse  of  brass,  and  the 
other  magic  gifts : — 


166      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Diverse  folk  diversely  they  demed ; 

As  many  hedes,  as  many  wittes  ther  been. 

They  murmureden  as  dooth  a  swarm  of  been,* 

And  maden  skiles  after  hir  fantasyes,^ 

Rehersinge  of  thise  olde  poetryes, 

And  seyden,  it  was  lyk  the  Pegasee, 

The  hors  that  hadde  winges  for  to  flee ; 

Or  elles  it  was  the  Grekes  hors  Synon,^ 

That  broghte  Troye  to  destruccion, 

As  men  may  in  thise  olde  gestes  rede. 

"  Myn  herte,"  quod  oon,  "  is  evermore  in  drede ; 

I  trowe  som  men  of  armes  been  ther-inne, 

That  shapen  *  hem  this  citee  for  to  winne. 

It  were  right  good  that  al  swich  thing  were 

knowe." 
Another  rowned  ^  to  his  f elawe  lowe, 
And  seyde,  "  He  lyeth,  it  is  rather  lyk 
An  apparance  y-maad  by  som  magyk 
As  jogelours  pleyen  at  thise  festes  grete." 
Of  sondry  doutes  thus  they  jangle  and  trete, 
As  lewed  ^  peple  demeth  comunly 
Of  thinges  that  been  maad  more  subtilly, 
Than  they  can  in  her  lewedness  comprehende  : 
They  demen  gladly  to  the  badder  ende. 

With  equal  learning  they  discuss  the  mirror 
and  sword  and  ring,  and  having  paraded 
their  knowledge  of  "  sondry  harding  of  metal,'* 
"  fern-asshen  glass "  and  similar  wonderful 
inventions,  come  to  no  conclusion. 

1  bees.        ^  And  made  guesses  according  to  their  fancy. 
*  The  horse  of  Sinon  the  Greek.  *  plot. 

*»  whispered.  ^  ignorant. 


CHAUCER'S  HUMOUR  167 

(4)  Humour. — If  it  is  difficult  to  draw  a 
hard-and-fast  line  round  other  elements  of 
comedy,  and  detach  wit  from  satire,  or  satire 
from  farce,  it  is  still  harder  to  attempt  to 
isolate  humour  and  discuss  it  as  a  separate 
and  distinct  property. /Humour  is  the  sympa-j 
thetic  appreciation  of  the  comic,  the  faculty' 
which  enables  us  to  love  while  we  laugh,  and^ 
to  love  the  better  for  our  laughter./'  Some- 
thing has  already  been  said  of  the  softening 
influence  of  comedy.  It  is  humour  which 
enables  us  to  see  the  other  person's  point  of 
view,  to  distinguish  between  crimes  and  mis- 
demeanours, so  that  we  no  more  wish  to 
convert  Sir  Toby  from  the  error  of  his  ways 
than  to  reduce  the  fat  boy's  appetite. 
Above  all,  it  is  humour  which  points  out 
those  endearing  peculiarities,  those  little 
toibles  and  harmless  weaknesses  which  give 
Parson  Adams  and  the  Vi<5ar  of  Wakefield  so 
warm  a  place  in  our  affections.  There  is  no 
sting  in  such  laughter,  no  conscious  superior- 
ity; on  the  contrary,  it  contains  an  element 
of  tenderness.  Obviously  humour  is  distinct 
from  satire,  but  it  can  be  distinguished  from 
farce  and  wit  only  by  insisting  on  the  ex- 
ternals when  speaking  of  them.  Humour  is 
indeed  the  soul  of  all  comedy.     Satire,  being 


168      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

destructive,  not  constructive,  is  in  a  class 
apart,  but  even  satire — as  we  have  seen  in 
Chaucer's  picture  of  a  crowd — may  become  so 
softened  by  humour  that  it  loses  the  element 
of  caricature  and  serves  only  to  give  a  keener 
edge  to  wit. 

'  Chaucer's  whole  point  of  view  is  that  of  the 
humorist.  To  the  tragic  writer  things  appar- 
ently trifling  in  themselves  may  be  fraught 
with  deep  significance.  A  chance  movement, 
a  momentary  impulse,  may  set  fire  to  the 
train  which  brings  about  the  catastrophe,  or 
may  reveal  some  subtle  shade  of  character 
which  it  is  essential  that  we  should  see.  But 
the  tragedian  has  no  time  to  waste  on  trifles 
for  their  own  sake.  If  Shakespeare  shows  us 
the  sleepy  porter  unbarring  the  gate  of 
Macbeth's  castle,  or  the*  grave-diggers  of 
Elsinore  singing  at  their  work,  it  is  not  be- 
cause he  wants  our  thoughts  to  dwell  on 
either  the  one  or  the  other.  They  have  their 
place  as  part  of  the  tragedy,  and  it  is  the  sense 
of  tragedy,  not  the  triviality  of  the  incident 
which  is  uppermost  in  our  mind.  But  the 
comic  poet  saunters  gaily  through  life  pausing 
to  notice  every  trifle  as  he  passes.  He  views 
the  world  as  the  unaccustomed  traveller 
views  a  foreign  country;    the  old  women  at. 


CHAUCER'S  HUMOUR  169 

their  cottage  doors,  the  peasants  plodding 
behind  their  patient  oxen  in  the  field,  the 
very  names  above  the  shops,  all  are  interesting. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  dull  person,  the 
mere  fashion  in  which  a  man  walks  or  wears 
his  clothes  is  worth  recording,  not  because  it 
throws  any  subtle  light  upon  his  character, 
but  because  it  is  unusual  and  therefore  quaint, 
because,  in  fact,  the  unexpected  is  manifest- 
ing itself  in  these  homely  details. 

Chaucer  possesses  this  faculty  of  amused 
observation  in  a  pre-eminent  degree.  Again 
and  again  he  contrives  to  invest  some  per- 
fectly trifling  and  commonplace  incident 
with  an  air  of  whimsicality,  and  by  so  doing 
to  make  it  at  once  realistic  and  remote.  We 
are  never  wholly  absorbed  by  what  amuses 
us,  in  the  sense  that  we  are  absorbed  by  what 
appeals  to  our  tragic  emotions.  Laughter 
implies  a  certain  detacbxpient,  whereas  in 
tragedy  we  feel  with  those  concerned  with  an 
intensity  which  often  causes  us  to  lose  all 
consciousness  of  our  own  individuality.  We 
may  be  surprised  to  find  the  tears  in  our 
eyes,  but  we  are  always  conscious  of  our 
laughter. 

This  homely,  whimsical  point  of  view  shows 
itself  in  a  thousand  minute  touches.     Friar 


170      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

John,  in  the  Somnours  Tale,  goes  to  call  on 
friend  Thomas: — 

And  fro  the  bench  he  droof  awey  the  cat, 
And  leyde  adoun  his  potente^  and  his  hat, 
And   eek   his   scrippe,    and   sette   him   softe 
adomi.  .  .  . 

The  rout  pursues  dan  Russel  the  fox : — 

And  cry  den,  "  Out !  harrow  !  and  weylawey  ! 
Ha,  ha,  the  fox  !  "  and  after  him  they  ran. 
And  eek  with  staves  many  another  man ; 
Ran  CoUe  our  dogge,  and  Talbot,  and  Gerland, 
And  Malkin,  with  a  distaf  in  her  hand ; 
Ran  cow  and  calf,  and  eek  the  verray  hogges 
So  were  they  f ered  for  berking  of  the  dogges 
And  shouting  of  the  men  and  wimmen  eek, 
They    ronne    so,    hem    thoughte    hir    herte 

brekke. 
They  yelleden  as  f eendes  doon  in  helle ; 
The  dokes  ^  cryden  as  men  wolde  hem  quelle ;  ' 
The  gees  for  fere  flowen  ^  over  the  trees ; 
Out  of  the  hyve  cam  the  swarm  of  bees.  .  .  . 

There  is  nothing  wildly  farcical  in  any  of 
this.  Friar  John  does  not  sit  on  the  cat; 
the  men  and  dogs  do  not  tumble  over  each 
other.  The  humour  consists  in  the  point  of 
view  which  finds  such  incidents  worth  re- 
cording. It  is  not  what  he  says,  but  the  way 
1  staff.  *  ducks.  ^  kill  *  flew. 


CHAUCER'S  HUMOUR  171 

he  says  it;   not  what  he  sees,  but  the  way  he 
sees  it. 

As  to  the  sympathetic  quaUty  of  humour, 
that  is  even  more  obvious  in  all  Chaucer's 
work.  It  is  sympathy  that  Ues  at  the  bottom 
of  a  tolerance  so  wide  that  it  hardly  finds  it 
necessary  to  forgive.  When  Chaucer  needs  a 
lodramatic  villain  or  villainess  such  as 
Apius,  or  AUe's  mother,  he  can  depict  one, 
but  except  when  it  affords  opportunity  for 
comedy  he  usually  touches  an  evil  character 
but  lightly.  His  heart  lies  in  the  pure  poetry 
of  such  women  as  Constance  and  Dorigen,  or 
in  broadly  comic  effect:  he  has  no  desire  to 
sound  the  depths  of  human  nature  or  to  dwell 
upon  the  darker  and  more  terrible  side  of  life. 
/Shakespeare's  comedy  is  often  touched  with 
a  suggestion  of  something  faintly  tragic. 
Even  Falstaff  is  by  no  means  a  wholly  comic 
figurCy^  and  the  wisdom  of  Jaques,  with  all 
its  ^Affectation,  contains  a  truth  that  goes 
beneath  the  surface.  Chaucer  seldom  shows 
us  the  revealing  power  of  comedy,  but,  like 
Shakespeare,  he  is  not  afraid  to  blend  gaiety 
and  gravity  in  the  same  person.  From  one 
point  of  view  the  Book  of  the  Duchesse  is 
surely  the  most  cheerful  elegy  ever  written. 
Chaucer  does  not  tell  oft   certain  low-class 


172      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

characters  for  comic  effect,  he  allows  even 
the  noblest  and  best  a  sense  of  humour. 
When  we  think  of  the  serious  and  lachrymose 
heroines  of  romance,  we  feel  that  Chaucer's 
women  owe  half  their  vitality  to  the  fact 
that  they  are  not  afraid  to  laugh,  that  noble 
and  high-minded  as  they  are,  they  are  part 
and  parcel  of  the  ordinary  stuff  of  human  life. 


CHAPTER  VI 

Chaucer's  descriptive  power 

From  the  earliest  days  of  pre-Conquest 
literature,  English  poetry  has  always  shown 
a  strong  feeling  for  nature.  Nature,  in  those 
early  days,  has  something  wild  and  terrible 
about  her;  great  forests,  haunted  by  savage 
beasts  and  more  savage  men,  stretch  over  the 
land;  the  sea-birds  utter  their  plaintive  cries 
as  they  hover  above  the  desolate  salt-marshes ; 
ice-cold  waves  break  on  the  iron-bound  coast. 
Yet  the  sons  of  the  sea-kings  feel  the  call  of 
the  sea  in  their  blood.  They  know  the  danger 
and  the  savagery  of  nature,  but  something 
in  them  responds  to  her  relentless  force,  and 
the  spell  of  the  sea  holds  them.  They  may 
picture  Heaven  as  a  place  where  there  is 
neither  hail  nor  frost,  and  look  forward  to 
still  waters  and  green  pastures  hereafter,  but 
on  earth  the  welter  of  the  waves,  and  the 
strange  calm  of  the  rime-bound  trees,  draw 
them  in  spite  of  themselves.  In  the  charms 
and  riddles  a  gentler  note  is  sometimes  sounded 
as  the  poet  watches  a  cloud  of  gnats  "  float 
173 


174      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

o'er  the  forest  heights,"  or  listens  to  the  whirr 
of  the  wild-swan's  wings;  but  on  the  whole 
the  impression  left  upon  our  minds  is  one  of 
force  rather  than  of  peace,  of  man  putting 
forth  his  might  to  subdue  the  wild  strength 
of  nature,  and  winning  a  bride  by  capture. 

Often  their  descriptions  of  warfare  gain 
an  added  force  from  the  skilful  use  of  some 
natural  detail.  The  wan  raven  circles  above 
the  conflicting  hosts,  waiting  for  his  prey; 
the  water-snakes  curve  and  curl  in  the 
seething  waters  into  which  Beowulf  plunges 
to  meet  the  monster.  Here  again,  we  have 
the  same  mingling  of  tragic  imagination  and 
fierce  exultation. 

They  delight  in  picturing  actual  battle,  in 
describing  the  hiss  of  the  javelins  through  the 
air,  and  the  gleam  of  the  flashing  blade.  But 
while  they  often  speak  of  the  beauty  of 
curiously  wrought  armour,  or  of  the  wealth 
of  a  king's  treasure,  they  show  little  power 
of  presenting  beauty  for  its  own  sake,  and 
none  at  all  of  depicting  the  beauty  of  a 
woman  c  Their  heroines  are  fair  and  gracious 
and  bear  the  mead  cup  round  the  hall  where 
the  warriors  feast,  and  unless  they  are  in  some 
way  concerned  with  causing  or  avenging  a 
quarrel,  that  is  all  there  is  to  say  about  them. 


CHAUCER'S  DESCRIPTIVE  POWER  175 

To  the  Anglo-Normans  this  wilder  and 
sterner  aspect  of  nature  seems  to  have  made 
little  appeal.  Nature  forms  a  charming  back- 
ground to  many  of  the  love-lyrics  of  the 
twelfth,  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries, 
but  it  is  a  far  daintier  and  sunnier  nature 
than  that  of  the  Old  English  poets.  The 
time  has  come  of  the  singing  of  birds : — 

Groweth  sed,  and  bloweth  med, 
And  springth  the  wude  nu — 
Sing  cuccu  !  ^ 

In  the  romances  certain  definite  conventions 
gradually  establish  themselves.  It  is  always 
May  morning  when  the  hero  rides  into  the 
green  forest,  and  flowers,  of  uncertain  species 
but  gay  colours,  flaunt  about  his  path.  A 
description  of  a  hunt,  including  minute  details 
as  to  the  proper  method  of  dismembering  the 
quarry,  often  finds  a  place — Tristram  first 
wins  King  Mark's  affections  by  teaching  his 
huntsmen  the  proper  method  of  cutting  up 
a  stag.  Detailed  descriptions  of  elaborate 
banquets  are  also  popular,  but  it  is  evident 
in  these,  as  in  the  descriptions  of  hunting, 

1  Groweth  seed  and  bloweth  mead 
And  springeth  the  wood  now— 
Sing  cuckoo. 


176      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

that  the  author's  interest  lies  rather  in  the 
actual  etiquette  than  in  any  pictorial  effect. 
Nevertheless,  the  romances  show  a  growing 
delight  in  colour  and  beauty.  The  hero  and 
heroine  must  conform  to  a  certain  conven- 
tional standard,  but  the  standard  is  by  no 
means  contemptible. 

"  Fair  was  he  and  slim  and  tall "  (so  we  read 
of  Aucassin  in  Mr.  Bourdillon's  translation) 
and  well  fashioned  in  legs  and  feet  and  body 
"  and  arms.  His  hair  was  yellow  and  crisped 
small;  and  his  eyes  were  grey  and  laughing; 
and  his  face  was  clear  and  shapely ;  and  his 
nose  high  and  well-set;  and  so  endued  was 
he  with  good  condition,  that  there  was  none 
bad  in  him,  but  good  only." 

And  the  fact  that  the  gardens  in  which  these 
gracious  beings  wander  conform  to  no  natural 
laws,  does  not  prevent  them  from  having  a 
charm  of  their  own.  What  could  be  more 
dainty  than  the  following  picture  of  a  dutiful 
daughter  reading  to  her  parents  (from  the 
Chevalier  au  Lion  by  Chretien  de  Troyes) : — 

Thrugh  the  hall  sir  Gawain  gase  ^ 
Intil  an  orchard,  playn  pase ;  ^ 
His  maiden  with  him  ledes  he  : 
He  fand  a  knyght  under  a  tree, 

^  goes.  *  steady  pace. 


CHAUCER'S  DESCRIPTIVE  POWER  177 

Opon  a  cloth  of  gold  he  lay ; 

Before  him  sat  a  f ul  f ayr  may ;  ^ 

A  lady  sat  with  them  in  fere  ^ 

The  maiden  read,  that  they  myght  here 

A  real  romance  in  that  place  .  .  . 

Only  occasionally  do  we  hear  any  echo  of  that 
deeper  note  which  somided  through  the  older 
poets,  and  catch  a  glimpse  of  winter,  when 

The   leaves   lancen  from  the   lynde  ^  and 
light(en)  on  the  gromid, 

and 

Unblithe  on  bare  twigs  sings  many  a  bird 
Piteously  piping  for  pain  of  the  cold. 

(Sir  Gawayn  and  the  Green  Knight.) 

The  battles  and  tournaments,  accounts  of 
which  fill  so  many  pages  of  the  romances, 
for  the  most  part  show  considerable  sameness 
of  treatment.  The  hero  is  beaten  to  his  knees 
by  the  giant,  or  is  almost  overpowered  by 
the  poisonous  breath  of  the  dragon,  when 
with  a  supreme  effort  he  recovers  himself  and 
pierces  his  adversary  in  whatever  his  one  vital 
spot  may  happen  to  be.  Now  and  then  some 
flash  of  ingenuity  lights  up  the  story,  as  when 
the    Soldan's    daughter    saves    Roland    and 

^  maid.  ^  together. 

3  fall  quickly  from  the  linden  tree. 

M 


178      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Oliver  and  their  companions  by  flinging  her 

father's  plate  to  the  besieging  army,  thus  at 

once  distracting  the  attention  of  the  soldiers 

and  making  her  avaricious  father  ready  to 

consent  to  any  compromise;  or  some  touch 

of  real  feeling  breaks  through  all  conventions, 

as  when  Sir  Tristram,  as  he  turns  to  meet 

Marhaus,  kicks  away  his  boat,  since  but  one 

of  them  will  need  any  means  of  leaving  the 

isle ;  but  for  the  most  part  the  author  follows 

the  regular  lines. 

;       Chaucer,  while  he  shows  definite  traces  of 

;   the  conventions  of  his  day,  in  description, 

i   as  in  other  matters,   follows  his  own  bent. 

\  Description  for  its  own  sake  has  little  interest 

for  him.     Again  and  again  he  cuts  short  some 

passage  which  his  contemporaries  would  have 

,  elaborated.     In  the  Squieres  Tale,  for  instance, 

j  a   banquet   occurs   which   affords   admirable 

opportunity    for    that    detailed    account    of 

ceremonial  so  dear  to  the  hearts  of  medieval 

'  poets.  Chaucer  tells  us  that  the  steward  ordered 

i  spices  and  wine,  and  then  adds  impatiently : — 

j      What  nedeth  yow  rehercen  hir  array  ?  ^ 
1      Ech  man  wot  wel,  that  at  a  kinges  feeste 
Hath  plentee,  to  the  moste  and  to  the  leeste. 
And  deyntees  mo  than  been  in  my  knowing. 

*  What  need  is  there  to  tell  of  their  array  ? 


CHAUCER'S  DESCRIPTIVE  POWER   179 

The  dinner  given  by  Deiphebus  in  Troilus  and 
Criseyde  is  passed  over  equally  perfunctorily: — 

Come  eek  Criseyde,  al  innocent  of  this, 
Antigone,  hir  sister  Tarbe  also; 
But  flee  we  now  prolixitee  best  is, 
For  love  of  god,  and  lat  us  faste  go 
Right  to  the  effect,  with  oute  tales  mo, 
Why  al  this  folk  assembled  in  this  place ; 
And  lat  us  of  hir  saluinges  pace.^ 

Even  the  hunt  in  the  Booh  of  the  Duchesse  is 
dismissed  in  little  over  a  dozen  lines : — 

Whan  we  came  to  the  forest-syde 
Every  man  dide,  right  anoon, 
As  to  hunting  fil  to  doon.^ 
The  mayster-hunte  anoon,  fot-hoot,^ 
With  a  gret  home  blew  three  moot  * 
At  the  uncoupling  of  his  houndes. 
Within  a  whyl  the  hert  [y]-founde  is, 
Y-halowed  and  rechased  faste 
Longe  tyme;  and  at  the  laste 
This  hert  rused^  and  stal  away 
Fro  alle  the  houndes  a  prevy  way  .  .  . 

And  then  the  poet  turns  to  the  real  subject 
of  his  poem.       Wordsworth  himself  does  not 
make  hunting  seem  a  tamer  occupation. 
Nor  are  Chaucer's  descriptions  of  fighting 

^  1.  e.  Let  us  pay  no  attention  to  their  greetings. 
2  fell  to  hunting.  ^  hot-foot. 

*  notes  on  the  horn.  ^  roused  itself. 


180      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

much  more  convincing.  He  tells  us  coldly 
that  Troilus  and  Diomede  met  in  battle : — 

With  blody  strokes  antl  with  wordes  grete, 

and  that  Troilus  often  beat  furiously  upon  the 
helmet  of  Diomede,  but  the  stanza  which 
follows  this  announcement  puts  the  matter 
in  a  nutshell : — 

And  if  I  hadde  y-taken  for  to  wryte 
The  armes  of  this  ilk  worthy  mane, 
Than  wolde  I  of  his  batailles  endjrte. 
But  for  that  I  to  wryte  first  began 
Of  his  love,  I  have  seyd  as  that  I  can. 
His  worthy  dedes,  who-so  list  hem  here, 
Reed  Dares,  he  can  telle  hem  alle  y-fere.^ 

It  is  emotion,  not  action,  which  interests 
him  most.  In  the  Knighies  Tale^  Palamon 
and  Arcite         . 

— foynen  ^  ech  at  other  wonder  longe, 

but  Chaucer  has  no  desire  to  follow  the  duel 
to  its  end.  He  remarks  that  they  hew  at 
each  other  till  they  are  ankle  deep  in  blood 
and  then  leaves  them,  still  fighting,  while  he 
turns  to  Theseus.  There  is  more  vigour  in 
the  description  of  the  tournament  at  the 
end.  Here  the  clash  of  arms  does  echo 
through  the  verse,  and  the  rapid  narrative 
*  together.  ^  thrust. 


CHAUCER'S  DESCRIPTIVE  POWER   181 

conveys  a  vivid  sense  of  the  heat  and  clamour 
of  battle : — 

Ther  stomblen  stedes  stronge,  and  doun 

goth  all. 
He  rolleth  under  foot  as  dooth  a  bal. 
He  f oyneth  on  his  feet  with  his  tronchoun, 
And  he  him  hurtleth  with  his  hors  adoun  .  .  . 

Possibly  the  poet  was  recalling  his  own 
fighting  days  in  France.  Certainly  there  is 
nothing  stiff  or  conventional  about  this.  But 
nowhere  else  does  he  give  so  lengthy  and 
detailed  a  description  of  action,  and  even 
here  it  has  a  dramatic  value,  apart  from  its 
intrinsic  interest,  in  that  it  enhances  the 
suspense.  Further,  Chaucer,  as  we  know, 
had  himself  probably  superintended  the  erec- 
tion of  such  lists,  and  the  ceremonial  of  the 
tournament  may  well  have  had  a  special 
interest  for  him.  His  use  of  similes  in  describ- 
ing action  is  worthy  of  note.  He  does  not, 
like  Spenser,  constantly  break  the  narrative 
by  introducing  some  beautiful  picture  drawn 
from  classical  mythology,  thus  carrying  the 
thoughts  of  the  reader  away  from  the  actual 
situation  at  the  moment.  His  similes  are 
few — in  this  connection — and  are  so  chosen  that 
they  add  to  the  vividness  of  the  whole  impres- 
sion.    Palamon  and  Arcite  fight  like  wild  boars 


182      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

That  frothen  whyie  as  foom  for  ire  wood. 

Of  Arcite  we  are  told. 

There  nas  no  tygre  in  the  vale  of  Galgopheye, 
Whan  that  hir  whelp  is  stole,  whan  it  is  lyte, 
So  cruel  on  the  hunte,  as  is  Arcite. 

Such  comparisons  are  very  different  from 
Spenser's : — 

Like  as  the  sacred  Oxe  that  carelesse  stands 
With  gilden  homes  and  flowry  girlands  crownd 
Proud  of  his  dying  honor  and  deare  bandes, 
While    th'    altars    fume    with    frankincense 

arownd, 
All  suddeinly,  with  mortal  stroke  astownd, 
Doth  groveling  fall,  and  with  his  streaming  gore 
Distaines  the  pillours  and  the  holy  grownd, 
And  the  faire  flowres  that  decked  him  afore  : 
So  fell  proud  Marinell  upon  the  pretious  shore. 

To  Chaucer  the  interest  does  not  lie  in  the 
pomp  and  pageantry,  nor  even  in  the  chivalry 
of  it  all,  but  in  the  human  emotion,  in  Emily 
waiting  to  know  which  of  the  lovers  will 
claim  her  hand,  in  the  knights  filled  with  the 
lust  of  battle,  in  the  quondam  friends  who 
seek  each  other's  life.  Chivalry  has,  indeed, 
little  glamour  in  Chaucer's  eyes.  Gower's 
story  of  Florent  has  a  certain  stateliness 
which  is  lacking  in  the  Tale  of  the  Wyf  of 
Bathe.  It  has  none  of  Chaucer's  digressions, 
none  of  the  homeliness   of  his   version.     A 


CHAUCER'S  DESCRIPTIVE  POWER   183 

description  of  the  elf -queen  and  her  jolly 
company  dancing  in  the  green  meadows 
would  perhaps  be  out  of  place  in  the  mouth 
of  the  Wife  of  Bath,  but  it  is  evident  that 
Chaucer  sacrifices  the  dainty  grace  of  Mab 
and  Puck  without  a  pang  in  order  to  allow 
himself  a  sly  hit  at  the  "  limitours  and  othere 
holy  freres  "  who  have  replaced  them. 

The  same  principle  underlies  his  description 
of  people.     In  the  Booh  of  the  Duchesse  he 
gives    us    a    detailed    account    of    Blanche's 
charms;    probably   he  felt  it  incumbent  on \ 
him  to  do  so.     She  is  fair,  as  a  heroine  should  \ 
be,  but  even  in  this,  the  most  conventional  1 
of  all  his  descriptions,  he  contrives  to  give  life  1 
and  individuality  to  the  conventional  type : —   ' 

For  every  heer  [up]on  hir  hede, 
Soth  to  seyn,  hit  was  not  rede, 
Ne  nouther  yelw,  ne  broun  hit  nas; 
Me  thoughte  most  lyk  gold  hit  was. 
And  whiche  eyen  my  lady  hadde  ! 
Debonair,  goode,  glade,  and  sadde,^ 
Simple,  of  good  mochel,^  noght  to  wyde; 

And  yet  more-over,  thogh  alle  tho 
That  ever  lived  were  now  a-lyve, 
[TheyJ  ne  sholde  have  founde  to  discryve 
In  al  hir  face  a  wikked  signe ; 
For  hit  was  sad,  simple,  and  benigne. 
*  grave.  2  size. 


184      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

This  is  no  stereotyped  model  of  feminine 
beauty,  but  a  picture  of  the  good  fair  White 
as  she  was  when  she  hved. 

In  describing  Cressida,  Chaucer  keeps  fairly 
close  to  his  original.  We  realise  her  beauty 
rather  from  the  effect  it  produces  on  others 
I  than  from  any  particular  details.  She  is  tall, 
but  so.  well  made  that  there  is  nothing  clumsy 
or  "  manish  "  about  her,  and  she  dresses  in 
black,  as  beseems  a  widow ;  this  is  practically 
all  that  we  are  told  about  her.  The  strong 
impression  of  sensuous  beauty  which  she 
imdoubtedly  produces,  is  due  to  Chaucer's 
power  of  creating  an  atmosphere  rather  than 
to  actual  description.  We  hear  the  nightingale 
singing  her  to  sleep,  or  watch  her  colour  come 
and  go  as  Troilus  draws  near,  and  our  mind 
is  so  filled  with  an  image  of  youth  and  beauty 
that  we  never  stop  to  think  if  she  is  fair  or 
dark.  It  is  the  same  with  Troilus.  We  get 
a  gallant  impression  of  him  as  he  rides  past 
Cressida's  window,  his  eyes  down-cast,  and 
a  boyish  shyness  tingeing  his  cheeks  with  red, 
but  Chaucer  thinks  of  his  feelings  rather  than 
his  looks.  Later  in  the  poem,  as  he  rides 
towards  the  palace  at  the  head  of  his  men, 
the  poet's  impatience  of  mere  description 
shows  itself  still  more  clearly : — 


CHAUCER'S  DESCRIPTIVE  POWER  185 

God  woot  if  he  sat  on  his  hors  a-right, 
Or  goodly  was  beseyn,^  that  ilke  day  ! 
God  woot  wher  he  was  lyk  a  manly  laiight ! 
What  sholde  I  dreeche  ^  or  telle  of  his  array  ? 
Criseyde,  which  that  alle  these  thinges  say, 
To  telle  in  short,  hir  lyked  al  y-f ere 
His  personne,  his  array,  his  look,  his  chere . . . 

Troilus's   looks   are,   in  fact,   of  importance/ 
only  because  they  win  the  heart  of  Cressida. 

But  if  Chaucer  devotes  little  space  to 
dilating  upon  mere  beauty  of  person,  he  has 
a  keen  eye  for  anything  in  dress,  manner,  or 
appearance  that  is  in  the  truest  sense  char- 
acteristic. The  Prologue  to  the  Canterbury 
Tales  shows  clearly  enough  how  trifles  may 
reflect  personality.  The  grey  fur  that  edges 
the  Monk's  sleeves,  and  the  love-kno^^of  gold 
that  fastens  his  hood,  tell  their  tale,  and  a 
single  glance  at  him  gives  us  considerable 
insight  into  his  character : —  «  J 

His  heed  was  balled,  that  shoon  as  any  glas. 
And  eek  his  face,  as  he  had  been  anoint. 
He  was  a  lord  ful  fat  and  in  good  point ;  ^ 
His  eyen  stepe,^  and  rollinge  in  his  heed. 
That  stemed  as  a  f orncye  of  a  leed ;  ^ 
His  botes  souple,  his  hors  in  greet  estat.^ 
Now  certainly  he  was  a  fair  prelat.  .  .  . 

^  Or  looked  welL  ^  Why  should  I  be  tedious. 

^  condition.  *  bright. 

^  That  steamed  like  a  furnace  of  lead.        ®  condition. 


186      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

The  Christopher  of  silver  that  gleams  on  the 
Yeoman's  green  coat ;  the  thread-bare  raiment 
and  lean  horse  of  the  Clerk  of  Oxenford ;  the 
ruddy  face  and  white  beard  of  the  FrankUn, 
all  serve  to  illustrate  the  same  point.  The 
very  spurs  of  the  Wife  of  Bath  seem  to  have 
a  subtle  significance  of  their  own. 

Once  only  does  Chaucer  go  out  of  his  way 
to  give  a  detailed  description  of  one  of  his 
heroines,  and  the  passage  is  worth  quoting 
in  full  because  not  only  does  it  illustrate  his 
careful  observation  of  detail,  but  it  shows  also 
a  dramatic  fitness  which  is  eminently  char- 
acteristic. The  Miller  is  describing  Alisoun, 
and  there  is  not  a  simile,  among  the  many 
used,  which  would  not  spring  naturally  to  the 
lips  of  a  peasant : — 

Fair  was  this  yonge  wyf ,  and  ther-with-al 

As  any  wesele  hir  body  gent  ^  and  smal. 

A  ceynt  ^  she  werede  barred  al  of  silk, 

A  barmclooth  ^  eek  as  whyt  as  morne  milk 

Up-on  hir  lendes,  ful  of  many  a  gore. 

Whyt  was  hir  smok  and  brouded  al  bifore 

And  eek-  bihinde,  on  hir  coler  aboute, 

Of  col-blak  silk,  with-inne  and  eek  with-outCc 

The  tapes  of  hir  whyte  voluper  ^ 

Were  of  the  same  suyte  of  hir  coler ;  ^ 

*  slim.  2  girdle.  *  apron. 

*  strings  of  her  white  cap.  ^  matched  her  collar. 


CHAUCER'S  DESCRIPTIVE  POWER   187 

Hir  filet  brood  of  silk,  and  set  ful  hye  : 
And  sikerly  she  hadde  a  likerous  ye.^ 
Ful  smale  y-pulled  were  hir  browes  two,^ 
And  tho  were  bent,  and  blake  as  any  sloo.^ 
She  was  ful  more  blisful  on  to  see 
Than  is  the  newe  pere-jonette ^  tree; 
And  softer  than  the  wolle  is  of  a  wether. 
And  by  hir  girdel  heeng  a  purs  of  lether 
Tasseld  with  silk,  and  perled  with  latoun.^ 
In  al  this  world,  to  seken  up  and  doun, 
Ther  nis  no  man  so  wys,  that  coude  thenche 
So  gay  a  popelote,^  or  swich  a  wenche. 
Ful  brighter  was  the  shyning  of  hir  hewe 
Than,  in  the  tour  the  noble  .y-forged  newe. 
But  of  hir  song,  it  was  as  loude  and  yerne'^ 
As  any  swalwe  sittinge  on  a  berne. 
Ther-to  she  coude  skippe  and  make  game. 
As  any  kide  or  calf  folwinge  his  dame. 
Her  mouth  was  swete  as  bragot  ^  or  the  meeth,* 
Or  hord  of  apples  leyd  in  hey  or  heeth, 
Winsinge  she  was,  as  is  a  joly  colt. 
Long  ,as  a  mast,  and  upright  as  a  bolt. 
A  brooch  she  baar  up-on  hir  lowe  coler, 
As  brood  as  is  the  bos  of  a  bocler. 

The  poet  who  wrote  this  had  used  his  eyes  to 
some  purpose.  In  certain  of  his  descriptions 
— notably  that  of  Chauntecleer  with  his  scarlet 
comb,  black  bill,  azure  legs,  white  nails   and 

^  enticing  eye.  ^  her  eyebrows  were  fine. 

3  And  they  were  arched,  and  black  as  any  sloe. 
*  A  kind  of  early  pear.  ^  studded  with  brass. 

«  puppet.        '  brisk.        ^  a  sweet  drink.        •  mead. 


188      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

;  golden  tail — we  notice  Chaucer's  love  of 
brilliant  colour,  but  this  makes  the  compara- 
tive dullness  and  tameness  of  his  marvellous 
palaces  and  enchanted  castles  all  the  more 
remarkable.  He  gives  us  a  list  of  golden 
images,  "  riche  tabernacles  "  and  "  curious 
portreytures  "  which  stand  in  the  Temple  of 
Glass,  but  it  is  a  mere  auctioneer's  catalogue 
of  valuables  which  conveys  no  real  impression 
of  beauty  or  strangeness.  We  read  of  Venus 
"  fietinge  in  a  sec,"  her  head  crowned  with 
roses. 

And  hir  comb  to  kembe  hir  heed, 

and  feel  as  if  we  were  looking  up  her  attributes 
in  a  classical  dictionary.  The  thrill  of  the 
Renaissance  has  not  yet  swept  across  Europe. 
The  gods  still  sleep,  before  awakening  to  their 
strange  sweet  Indian  summer  of  life.  Classical 
mythology  serves  Chaucer  as  an  additional 
storehouse  of  story  and  illustration,  but  it 
no  more  intoxicates  him  with  rapture  than 
does  the  Gesta  Romanorum.  Spenser's  Temple 
of  Venus,  in  which : — 

An  hundred  altars  round  about  were  set. 
All  flaming  with  their  sacrifices  fire, 
That  with  the  steme  thereof  the  Temple  swet. 
Which  rould  in  clouds  to  heaven  did  aspire, 
And  in  them  bore  true  lovers  vowes  entire : 


CHAUCER'S  DESCRIPTIVE  POWER   189 

And  eke  an  hundred  brazen  cauldrons  bright 
To  bath  in  joy  and  amorous  desire, 
Every  of  which  was  to  a  damzell  bright; 
For  all  the  Priests  were  damzells  in  soft  linnen 
dight  .  .  . 

glows  with  colour  and  warmth.  Chaucer's 
perfunctory  statement  that  the  windows  of 
his  chamber  were  well  glazed  and  unbroken, 

That  to  beholde  it  were  gret  joye, 
and  that  in  the  glazing  was  wrought 
.  .  .  al  the  storie  of  Troye, 


Of  Ector  and  king  Pirriamus, 

Of  Achilles  and  Lamedon, 

Of  Medea  and  of  Jason, 

Of  Paris,  Eleyne,  ^nd  Lavyne  .  .  . 

leaves  us  untouched. 

But  if  Chaucer  is  ill  at  ease  within  four 
walls,  and  takes  but  scant  pleasure  in  looking 
at  tapestries  and  pictures,  the  moment  he 
slips  out  of  doors  he  becomes  a  different  being. 
He  is  no  Wordsworth  noting  each  twig  and 
leaf,  or  watching  with  mystic  gaze  the  shadows 
fall  on  the  silent  hills.  He  is  content  to  fill  \ 
his  garden  with  flowers  of  the  regulation         1 

.  .  .  whyte,  blewe,  yelowe,  and  rede; 
And  colde  welle-stremes  no-thing  dede. 
That  swommen  ful  of  smale  fisshes  lighte 
With  finnes  rede  and  scales  silver-brighte. 


190      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

and  it  is  probably  just  as  well  not  to  inquire 
too  closely  into  the  natural  order  of  either 
blossoms  or  fish.  Cressida's  garden  is  dis- 
tinguished by  the  neatness  of  its  fences,  and 
the  fact  that  its  paths  have  recently  been 
gravelled  and  provided  with  nice  new  benches. 
But  even  in  these  trim  and  formal  gardens 
the  spirit  of  spring  is  abroad,  and  once  in  the 
wood,  Chaucer  abandons  himself  to  the  sheer 
joy  of  nature.  He  passes  down  a  green 
glade 

Ful  thikke  of  gras,  ful  softe  and  swete. 
With  floures  fele,  faire  under  fete.  .  .  . 

•         ••••*• 
For  it  was,  on  to  beholde 
As  thogh  the  erthe  envye  wolde 
To  be  gayer  than  the  heven 
To  have  mo  floures,  swiche  seven 
As  in  the  welken  sterres  be.^ 
Hit  had  forgete  the  povertee 
That  winter,  through  his  colde  morwes, 
Had  mad  hit  suffre[n],  and  his  sorwes ; 
Al  was  forgeten,  and  that  was  sene. 
For  al  the  wode  was  waxen  grene. 
Swetnesse  of  dewe  had  mad  it  waxe  .  .  . 

and  his  heart  keeps  tune  to  the  song  of  the 
birds.  ^  He  has  something  of  Milton's  power 
of  giving  a  general   sense  of  freshness  and 

^  To  have  more  flowers  than  the  seven  staxs  in  the  sky. 


CHAUCER'S  DESCRIPTIVE  POWER  191 

sweetness,  and,  again  like  Milton,  his  scenery 
always  strikes  one  as  peculiarly  English.     He  ^^ 
tells  us  that  Cambinskan  reigns  in  Syria,  but 
his  picture  of  the  birds  singing  for  joy  of  the 
lusty  weather  and  the  "  yonge  grene,"  is  that  ij 
of  a  Northern  rather  than  an  Eastern  spring.  || 
His  best-loved  flower,  the  daisy,  springs  in  % 
every  English  hedgerow.  2 

The  description  of  May  in  the  Prologue  to^ 
the  Legend  of  Good   Women  is   particularly  I 
charming.     The  poet  declares  that  one  thing,  | 
and  one  alone,  has  power  to  take  him  from 
his  books.     When  May  comes, 

Whan  that  I  here  the  smale  foules  singe 
And  that  the  floures  ginne  for  to  springe, 
Farwel  my  studie,  as  lasting  that  sesoun. 

Instead  of  poring  over  some  ponderous  tome, 
he  wanders  out  into  the  meadows  to  watch 
the  daisy  open  to  the  sun : — 

And  whan  the  sonne  ginneth  for  to  weste 
Than  closeth  hit,  and  draweth  hit  to  reste, 
So  sore  hit  is  af ered  of  the  night, 
Til  on  the  morwe,  that  hit  is  dayes  light. 

All  day  long  he  roams  till 

— closed  was  the  flour  and  goon  to  reste,  _^^, 

and  then  he  speeds  swiftly  home : — 


192      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

And  in  a  litel  erber  that  I  have, 
Y-benched  newe  with  turves  f resshe  y-grave, 
I  bad  men  shulde  me  my  couche  make; 
For  deyntee  of  the  newe  someres  sake 
I  bad  hem  strowe  floures  on  my  bed. 

I  But  here  again  it  is  impression  rather  than 

j actual  description.- 

True  to  the  city-bred  instinct,  Chaucer  sees 
winter  rather  as  the  king  of  intimate  dehghts 
and  fire-side  pleasures,  than  as  having  an 
especial  beauty  of  his  own.  The  Frankeleyns 
Tale  contains  a  picture  of  December  which 
brings  the  comfort  of  ingle-nook  and  steaming 
cup  vividly  before  us  : — 

The  bittre^frostes,  with  the  sl^et  and  reyn, 
Destroyed  hath  the  grene  in  every  yerd. 
Janus  sit  by  the  fyr,  with  double  herd. 
And  drinketh  of  his  bugle-horn  the  wyn. 
Before  him  stant  braun  of  the  tusked  swyn, 
And  "  Nowel  "  cryeth  every  lusty  man. 

We  almost  feel  the  pleasant  glow  of  the  fire, 
and  hear  the  great  logs  hiss  and  crackle. 

It  is  impossible  to  read  Chaucer's  descrip- 
tions of  nature  without  being  struck  by  his 
love  of  birds  and  animals,  and  especially  of 
the  smaller  and  more  helpless  kinds.  Birds 
occupy  a  large  place  in  his  affections.  He  is 
perpetually  pausing  to  call  attention  to  them 


CHAUCER'S  DESCRIPTIVE  POWER  193 

and  spring  is  to  him  pre-eminently  the  time 
when  "  smale  fowles  maken  melodye."  Here 
again  he  shows  Httle  minute  observation  or 
discrimination,  it  is  birds  in  general,  rather 
than  any  bird  in  particular,  that  he  loves. 
To  praise  the  song  of  a  nightingale  can  hardly 
be  reckoned  any  proof  of  special  bird-lore, 
and  except  in  the  Parlement  of  Foules,  Chaucer 
scarcely  mentions  any  other  bird  by  name. 
The  crow,  who  is  the  real  hero  of  the 
Maunciples  Tale,  and  who  distinguishes  him- 
self by  singing,  "  cukkow !  cukkow !  cukkow  !  " 
can  no  more  be  regarded  as  an  ordinary, 
imsophisticated  bird  than  can  the  eagle  who 
acts  as  Jove's  messenger  in  the  Hous  of  Fame, 
or  the  princess  disguised  as  a  falcon  who 
seeks  Canace's  aid.  The  Parlement  of  Foules, 
it  is  true,  shows  that  Chaucer  knew  the  names 
of  a  considerable  number  of  birds,  but  the 
epithets  that  he  applies  to  each  show  no 
more  real  knowledge  of  their  habits  than  the 
epithets  which  he  (or  rather,  Boccaccio) 
applies  to  the  various  trees,  in  an  earlier 
stanza,  show  any  love  of  forestry.  The  oak 
is  useful  for  building  purposes,  and  the  elm 
makes  good  coffins.  In  like  manner,  the 
owl  forebodes  death,  and  the  swallow  eats 
flies,  or  rather,  if  we  are  to  believe  Chaucer, 

N 


194       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

bees.  Regarded  as  individuals,  the  birds 
are  delightfully  convincing  :  regarded  as  birds 
they  are  dismissed  rather  carelessly,  though, 
since  it  is  Chaucer  who  dismisses  them,  an 
occasional  happy  phrase  redeems  the  passage 
from  dullness  and  monotony. 

But  it  is  not  only  in  a  love  of  birds,  which, 
after  all,  is  common  to  most  poets,  that 
Chaucer  shows  this  side  of  his  nature.  Refer- 
ence has  already  been  made  to  the  whelp 
and  the  squirrels  which  he  introduces  into  the 
Book  of  the  Duchesse.  The  little  coneys  who 
hasten  to  their  play  in  the  garden  of  the 
;  Parlement  of  Foules  are  due  in  the  first  place 
to  Boccaccio,  but  the  Italian  merely  tells  us 
that  they  "  go  hither  and  thither."  His 
picture  is  dainty  and  pretty,  but  it  lacks 
the  half-amused  tenderness  of  Chaucer's. 
Chaucer,  it  is  evident,  loves  them  all,  bird 
and  beast,  sportive  coney  and  timid  roe,  not 
forgetting  the 

Squerels,  and  bestes  smale  of  gentil  kinde. 

The  following  stanza  affords  illustration  of 
another  point  in  Chaucer's  descriptions. 
Master  of  melody  as  he  is,  he  has  not  learned 
the  subtle  art  of  suiting  sound  to  sense,  and 
producing  a  definite  sensuous  impression  by 


CHAUCER'S  DESCRIPTIVE  POWER   195 

sheer  music.     It  is  impossible  to  read  of  these 

— instruments  of  strenges  in  acord 

which  make  so  ravishing  a  sweetness,  without 
finding  one's  thoughts  involuntarily  carried 
on  to  Spenser's  enchanted  garden  in  which 

Th'  Angelicall  soft  trembling  voyces  made 
To    th'    instruments    divine    respondence 
meet.  .  .  . 

Chaucer's  little  wind — "  unethe  it  might  be 
lesse  " — which  makes  a  soft  noise  in  the  green 
leaves,  is  too  fresh  ever  to  blow  across  the 
flowers  of  Acrasia's  garden,  but  the  Bower 
of  Bliss  casts  a  spell  over  us  of  which  Chaucer 
has  not  the  secret.  He  is  too  frankly  of  this 
world  to  be  at  home  in  fairy-land,  and  the 
note  of  sincerity  which  sounds  throughout 
his  verse  would  accord  ill  with  such  intoxicat- 
ing sweetness.  Lady  Pride  and  her  followers. 
Dame  Cselia  and  her  fair  daughters,  Fidelia, 
Speranza,  and  Carita,  find  a  natural  home  in 
Spenser's  world  of  wonders.  But  Chaucer's 
allegorical  personages  must  needs  either  come 
to  life  and  turn  into  actual  human  beings, 
Kke  the  birds  in  the  Parlement  of  Foules,  or 
remain  stiff  abstractions,  like  Plesaunce,  and 
Delyt,  and  Gentilnesse,  and  the  other  symbolic 
inhabitants  of  the  garden  of  the  Rose. 


CHAPTER  VII 

SOME  VIEWS   OF  CHAUCER's   ON  MEN  AND 
THINGS 

The  late  fourteenth  century  was  a  time  of 
social  and  political  upheaval.  The  Church, 
over-rich  and  over-powerful  for  her  own  good, 
had  become  terribly  corrupt.  The  fact  that 
great  offices  of  state  were  held  by  bishops 
meant,  of  necessity,  that  more  and  more  of 
their  purely  ecclesiastical  work  was  delegated 
to  subordinates.  In  the  ten  years  between 
1376-86,  out  of  twenty-five  bishops  no 
fewer  than  thirteen  held  secular  offices  of 
importance.  William  of  Wykeham  was  ap- 
pointed Chancellor  of  England  and  Bishop 
of  the  great  diocese  of  Winchester  in  the  same 
month.  Spencer,  Bishop  of  Norwich,  led  the 
English  army  in  Flanders.  No  wonder  that 
the  power  of  the  archdeacons,  the  oculi 
episcopi^  increased  tenfold.  They  frequently 
exercised  authority  in  the  bishop's  court,  and 
in   those   days   the   powers   of    ecclesiastical 

courts  were  considerable  and  their  jurisdiction 
196 


VIEWS   ON  MEN  AND  THINGS     197 

was  wide.  The  sketch  which  prefaces  the 
Freres  Tale  was  probably  drawn  from  the 
Ufe:— 

Whilom  ther  was  dwellinge  in  my  contree 
An  erchedeken,  a  man  of  heigh  degree 


For  smale  tythes  and  for  smal  offringe 
He  made  the  peple  pitously  to  singe. 
For  er  the  bisshop  caughte  hem  with  his 

hook, 
They  weren  in  the  erchedekenes  book. 

Add  to  this  the  fact  that  one  in  three  of  the 
archdeacons  holding  office  in  England  at  this 
time  were  foreigners,  and  it  is  easy  to  see  how 
much  ill-feeling  was  likely  to  be  stirred  up 
between  them  and  the  laity.  Nor  were  the 
parish  priests  much  better.  The  black  death, 
which  ravaged  Europe  from  time  to  time,  had 
swept  across  England  with  peculiar  fury  in 
1348.  Hundreds  of  the  noblest  and  best  of 
the  clergy,  who  stayed  gallantly  by  their 
flocks,  had  been  swept  away.  There  were 
not  enough  priests  to  administer  the  sacra- 
ments of  the  Church,  and  between  this  urgent 
necessity  for  ministers  to  bury  the  dead,  to 
baptise  and  marry,  and  the  fact  that  many  of 
the  richer  livings  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of 
foreigners,  who  eared  nothing  for  the  peasants 


198       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

committed  to  their  charge,  or  of  the  great 
Abbeys,  which  were  ready  enough  to  appoint 
some  ilKterate  boor,  just  able  to  stumble 
through  his  office,  to  act  as  their  deputy  at  a 
nominal  salary,  it  is  small  wonder  that  crying 
abuses  came  into  existence.  "  They  have 
parish  churches,"  writes  Wy cliff,  "  apropered 
to  worldly  rich  bishops  and  abbots  that  have 
many  thousand  marks  more  than  enow.  .  .  . 
And  yet  they  do  not  the  office  of  curates, 
neither  in  teaching  or  preaching  or  giving  of 
sacraments  nor  of  receiving  poor  men  in  the 
parish  :  but  setten  an  idiot  for  vicar  or  parish 
priest  that  cannot  and  may  not  do  the  office 
of  a  good  curate,  and  yet  the  poor  parish 
findeth  him."  Chaucer  finds  it  among  the 
striking  virtues  of  his  poor  Parson  that : — 

He  sette  nat  his  benefice  to  hyre. 

And  leet  his  sheep  encombred  in  the  myre, 

And  ran  to  London,  un-to  seynt  Poules 

To  seken  him  a  chaunterie  for  soules,^ 

Or  with  a  bretherhed  to  been  withholde ; 

But  dwelte  at  hoom,  and  kepte  wel  his  f  olde 

and  that  he  does  not  attempt  to  wring  their 

last  penny  from  his  unfortunate  parishioners : — 

1  This  refers  to  the  common  practice  of  paying  a  poor 
and  often  iUiterate  priest  to  take  charge  of  a  parish  while 
the  vicar  went  to  London  and  earned  a  handsome  and 
easy  livehhood  by  saying  masses  for  the  repose  of  the  souls 
of  those  who  had  left  rich  relatives. 


VIEWS  ON  MEN  AND  THINGS    199 

Ful  looth  were  him  to  cursen  for  his  tythes.* 

Matters  were  further  compUcated  by  the 
wandering  friars  who  recognised  no  jurisdic- 
tion save  that  of  the  Pope  himself,  and  who, 
having  fallen  far  from  the  noble  ideal  of 
poverty,  chastity,  and  obedience,  set  by  their 
founders,  took  unscrupulous  advantage  oJ 
the  ignorance  and  superstition  of  the  people, 
and,  like  the  pardoners,  often  undermined  the 
authority  of  the  parish  priests.  The  custom 
of  commuting  penance  for  a  payment  in 
money  was  spreading,  and  naturally  opened 
the,  door  to  abuses  of  all  kinds. 

No  wonder  that  Wycliff  arose  to  thunder 
against  these  malpractices,  and  that  his  poor 
preachers  gained  such  a  following.  It  was 
not,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  that  people  had 
any  quarrel  with  the  doctrines  of  the  Church — 
the  number  of  recantations  and  paucity  of 
martyrs  among  the  early  Lollards  show  that 
it  was  not  doctrine  that  they  wished  to  reform 
— but  injustice  and  oppression  were  inevitably 
arousing  a  widespread,  smouldering  discon* 
tent  which  broke  into  flame  now  at  this  point, 
now  at  that.  As  we  read  the  history  of 
the   time,    we   marvel    at  the  patience  and 

'  He  was   loth  to  excommunicate  those  whose  tithe 
was  in  arrears. 


200       CHAUCER, AND  HIS  TIMES 

good-humour  of    the  inhabitants  of    Merry 
England. 

How  far  Chaucer  was  in  sympathy  with  the 
Lollards  it  is  difficult  to  say.  His  works 
contain  but  the  barest  reference  to  their 
existence,  and  the  fact  that  the  Host  accuses 
the  Parson  of  Lollardy,  and  that  the  Shipman 
expresses  a  pious  horror  of  heresy,  cannot  be 
said  to  prove  anything  either  way.  It  may 
be  intended  as  a  carefully  concealed  compli- 
ment to  the  influence  of  Wycliff,  or,  as  seems 
more  probable,  it  may  simply  be  a  chance 
reference  in  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the 
times.  That  the  Shipman  should  be  so 
terrified  lest  the  saintly  Parson  should 

"...  springen  cokkel  in  our  clene  corn,* 

that  he  feels  impelled  to  break  into  his 
threatened  sermon  with  the  story  of  the 
merchant's  wife  and  the  monk,  is  a  subtle 
enough  piece  of  satire,  but  whether  Chaucer  so 
intended  it,  or  whether  it  is  one  of  the  happy 
accidents  of  genius,  we  have  no  means  of 
knowing.  The  Parson  is  a  devout  Catholic, 
the  Monk,  with  all  his  faults,  is  at  worst  but  a 
forerunner  of  the  fox-hunting  squarson  of  later 
days,  with  all  the  geniality  and  good-fellow- 
^  i.  e.  sow  tares  in  our  wheat. 


VIEWS  ON  MEN  AND  THINGS    201 

ship  of  his  race.  If  Chaucer  attacks  the 
clergy,  it  is  only  for  those  things  which  the 
best  Churchmen  of  the  day  were  denouncing 
with  less  wit  but  no  less  bitterness.  Saints 
are  rare  at  the  best  of  times,  and  Chaucer, 
whose  mission  is  to  paint  life  as  he  finds  it, 
gives  good  measure  when  he  allows  the  Parson 
and  the  Plowman  to  form  two  of  his  nine-and- 
twenty  pilgrims. 

Few  things,  indeed,  are  more  striking  in 
Chaucer  than  the  manner  in  which  he  com- 
bines caustic  observation  of  the  weaknesses 
and  hypocrisies  of  men,  with  innate  reverence 
for  all  that  is  pure  and  noble.  That  the  same 
man  should  enjoy  the  coarse  humour  of  the 
Friar  and  the  Reve,  and  yet  treat  womanhood 
and  childhood  with  such  tende^r  reverence, 
is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  human  nature. 
Prof.  Ten  Brink,  as  has  been  said,  believes 
that  Chaucer  passed  through  a  phase  of 
intense  religious  feeling.  ''  A  worldling  has 
to  reproach  himself  with  all  sorts  of  things," 
he  writes,  "  especially  when  he  lives  at  a  court 
like  that  of  Edward  III  and  is  intimate  with 
a  John  of  Gaunt.  Chaucer  .  •  .  naturally 
seeks  in  religion  the  power  for  self-conquest 
and  improvement.  He  was  a  faithful  son 
of  the  Church,  even  though  he  had  his  own 


202       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

opinions  about  many  things.  .  .  ,  He  was 
specially  attracted  by  the  eternal-womanly 
element  in  this  system,  which  finds  its  purest 
realisation  in  the  person  of  the  Virgin  Mother 
Mary.  In  moments  when  life  seemed  hard 
and  weary,  and  when  he  was  unable  to  arouse 
and  cheer  himself  with  philosophy  and  poetry, 
he  gladly  turned  for  help  and  consolation  to 
the  Virgin  Mother."  Certainly  his  poetry  is 
never  sweeter  or  more  dignified  than  when  he 
is  addressing  this  "  haven  of  refut,"  this 

salvacioun 

Of  hem  that  been  in  sorwe  and  in  distresse. 

Nothing  better  illustrates  the  simplicj 
and  sincerity  of  Chaucer's  religious  feeling 
than  the  tale  of  little  St.  Hugh.  The  story 
of  the  Christian  child  decoyed  away  and 
murdered  by  the  Jews  was  commonly  be- 
lieved in  the  Middle  Ages.  Indeed,  it  is  said 
that  more  than  one  anti-Semitic  outbreak  in 
Russia  during  the  past  forty  years  has  been 
provoked  by  the  relation  of  similar  tales,  and 
we  have  just  seen  the  conclusion  of  a  "  Blood- 
ritual"  case  of  the  kind.  The  fierce  racial 
and  religious  hatred  which  underlies  belief  in 
the  possibility  of  such  a  thing,  is  in  itself 
suflBciently   terrible,    and   the    story    affords 


VIEWS  ON  MEN  AND   THINGS    203 

ample  opportunity  for  the  expression  of 
animosity  towards  these 

.  .  .  cursed  folk  of  Herodes  al  newe, 

but  Chaucer's  religion  would  appear  to  con- 
sist less  in  the  denunciation  of  the  Church's 
enemies,  than  in  affection  for  her  saints. 
Dramatic  justice  is  meted  out  to  the  murderers, 
but  the  poet  takes  no  delight  in  dwelling  on 
their  dying  agonies,  or  heaping  abuse  upon 
their  memory.  The  point  of  the  tale  lies, 
not  in  the  wickedness  of  the  Jews,  but  in  the 
simple,  childish  innocence  and  piety  of  Hugh, 
and  the  manner  in  which  "  Cristes  moder  " 
c' .  ^f Aii  to  honour  the  service  of  this 

,^ .  .  litel  clergeon  ^  of  seven  yeer  of  age. 

^iie  opening  invocation  is  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  of  all  Chaucer's  addresses  to  the 
Virgin : — 

Lady  !   thy  bountee,  thy  magnificence. 

Thy  vertu,  and  thy  grete  humilitee 

Ther  may  no  tonge  expresse  in  no  science ; 

For  som-tyme,  lady,  er  men  praye  to  thee. 

Thou  goost  biforn,  of  thy  benignitee. 

And  getest  us  the  light,  thurgh  thy  preyers, 

To  gyden  us  un-to  thy  sone  so  dere. 

From  beginning  to  end  the  limpid  simplicity 
^  chorister. 


204       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

of  the  poem  is  marred  by  no  unnecessary 
word.  The  picture  of  the  Uttle  boy  doing  his 
dihgence  to  learn  the  Alma  redemptorisy 
although 

Noght  wiste  he  what  this  Latin  was  to  seye 
For  he  so  yong  and  tendre  was  of  age, 

and  going  to  his  school-fellow  to  have  it 
explained,  is  absolutely  natural.  So  is  the 
school-fellow's  hasty  summary  of  the  hymn, 
ending  with 

"  I  can  no  more  expounde  in  this  matere ; 
I  lerne  song,  I  can  ^  but  smal  gramrnere." 

Chaucer  does  not,  like  so  many  hagiographers, 
forget  the  child  in  the  saint.  The  prevailing 
note  throughout  is  one  of  happy  childhood. 
The  tragedy  is  kept  in  the  background.  We 
catch  a  glimpse  of  the  cruel  steel  as  the  Jews 
cut  the  boy's  throat :  we  see  the  white-faced 
mother  hastening  from  place  to  place  in 
search  of  him ;  but  our  thoughts  are  with  St. 
Hugh  and  the  gracious  Queen  of  Heaven  who 
comes  to  aid  him : — 

And  in  a  tombe  of  marbul-stones  clere 
Enclosen  they  his  litel  body  swete ; 
Ther  he  is  now,  god  leve  us  for  to  mete.^ 

1  know.  2  God  grant  that  we  may  meet. 


VIEWS  ON  MEN  AND  THINGS    205 

There  is  no  tendency  to  over-elaborate  the 
miracle  or  to  explain  it  away.  Chaucer 
accepts  the  fact  quietly  and  without  com- 
ment, as  he  accepts  the  miracles  in  the  Man 
of  Lawes  Tale.  In  the  story  of  Constance, 
indeed^,  it  would  seem  as  if  some  momentary 
doubt  of  its  possibility  flashed  across  his  mind, 
for  he  goes  out  of  his  way  to  defend  the 
miraculous  element,  but  the  defence  itself 
is  one  of  simple  acceptance  of  facts  related 
in  the  Bible,  and  shows  none  of  that  intel- 
lectual questioning  which  sometimes  manifests 
itself  in  his  poetry : — 

Men  mighte  asken  why  she  was  nat  slayn  ? 
Eek  at  the  f este  who  mighte  hir  body  save  ? 
And  I  answere  to  that  demaunde  agayn, 
Who  saved  Daniel  in  the  horrible  cave, 
Ther  every  wight  save  he,  maister  and  knave 
Was  with  the  leoun  fret  er  he  asterte  ?  ^ 
No  wight  but  god,  that  he  bar  in  his  herte. 

Now,  sith  she  was  not  at  the  feste  y-slawe,^ 
Who  kepte  hir  fro  drenching  ^  in  the  see  ? 
Who  kepte  Jonas  in  the  fisshes  mawe 
Til  he  was  spouted  up  at  Ninivce  ?  .  .  . 

It  is  obvious  that  Catholicism  appeals  to  his 

^  Was  eaten  by  the  lion  ere  he  could  escape. 
2  slain.  ^  drowning. 


206       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

emotions,  and  that  the  shortcomings  of  un- 
worthy priests  no  more  affect  his  pleasure  in 
the  tender  beauty  of  its  point  of  view,  than  the 
moral  errors  of  a  Benvenuto  Cellini  affect  our 
pleasure  in  his  craftsmanship.  The  poet's  soul 
responded  to  the  poetry  of  worship,  a  poetry 
which  underlies  all  forms  and  ceremonies, 
which  no  unworthiness  on  the  part  of  the 
officiant  can  wholly  obliterate,  no  superstition 
render  wholly  absurd.  He  recognises  and 
rebukes  the  hypocrisy  of  many  who  minister 
in  the  name  of  Holy  Church,  but  he  is  quick 
to  separate  wanton  friar  and  idle  priest  from 
the  religion  whose  dignity  they  profane.  The 
fact  that  religion  lies  in  the  spirit  ratheFfhan 
'tEe"^oEseryance  is  very  clgarly  staTefl  in  the 
Romaunt  of  the  Rose^lh  6225-94^         " 

As  has  been  said,  it  is  on  the  emotional  side 
that  Catholicism  appeals  to  him.  Intellectu- 
ally he  finds  many  difficulties,  and  more  than 
once  his  poetry  shows  a  tinge  of  scepticism 
which  might  well  have  brought  him  into 
serious  difficulties  had  his  patron  been  a  man 
less  powerful  and  less  inclined  to  tolerate 
heretical  sympathies  than  John  of  Gaimt. 
Again  and  again  Chaucer  comes  to  the  edge 
of  an  abyss,  and,  after  one  glance  into  the 
depths,    turns    away    with    a    shrug    of    the 


VIEWS  ON  MEN  AND  THINGS    207 

shoulders  and  a  half-whimsical,  lialf-satirical 
smile  on  his  lips.  Does  God  ordain  man's  life 
for  him,  from  beginning  to  end,  and  has  he  no 
choice  or  freedom  of  action  left  him  ?  Chaucer 
plays  with  the  question,  turns  it  over,  makes 
it  a  trifle  ridiculous  by  applying  it  to  the  death 
of  a  cock,  and  then,  as  we  have  seen,  tosses  it 
aside  with 

I  wol  not  han  to  do  of  swich  matere ; 

The  long  disquisition  on  the  subject — chiefly 
taken  from  his  favourite  philosopher,  Boethius 
— which  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Troilus 
{Troilus  and  Criseyde,  Book  IV,  stanzas  137- 
154)  proves  nothing,  except  Chaucer's  interest 
in  the  subject,  which  leads  him  to  translate 
and  insert  so  long  a  passage,  and  the  natural 
inclination  to  fatalism  of  Troilus  himself. 

The  Prologue  to  the  Legend  of  Good  Women 
begins  with  a  characteristic  shelving  of  an 
important  question : — 

A  thousand  tymes  have  I  herd  men  telle, 

That  ther  is  joye  in  heven  and  peyne  in  helle ; 

And  I  accorde  wel  that  hit  is  so ; 

But  natheles,  yit  wot  I  wel  also. 

That  ther  nis  noon  dwelling  in  this  contree, 

That  either  hath  in  heven  or  helle  y-be, 

Ne  may  of  hit  non  other  weyes  witen 

But  as  he  hath  herd  seyd,  or  founde  it  writen 


208       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

True,  the  poet  goes  on  to  protest  the  absurdity 
of  refusing  credence  to  everything  that  we 
cannot  see  with  our  own  eyes,  but  involun- 
tarily we  find  ourselves  recalling  his  refusal  to 
commit  himself  as  to  the  probable  fate  of 
Arcite's  soul,  and  the  fact  that  Arcite,  al- 
though a  hero,  was  a  heathen,  does  not  seem 
entirely  to  account  for  it. 

This  tendency  to  dwell  upon  insoluble 
problems  manifests  itself  also  in  the  strange 
attraction  that  dreams  have  for  Chaucer.  He 
is  not  content  simply  to  use  the  conventional 
dream  setting  for  his  poems.  He  is  con- 
tinually harking  back  to  the  question  :  Do 
dreams  contain  some  mysterious  warning  by 
which  men  may  escape  a  threatened  fate? 
In  the  No  fines  Prestes  Tale  the  subject  is 
treated  satirically.  Pertelote's  arguments 
against  belief  in  dreams  are  excellent,  and 
most  convincing.  All  sensible  people  must 
share  her  opinion  that  Chauntecleer  is  pro- 
bably suffering  from  indigestion.  Yet — the 
dream  comes  true.  Only  the  fact  that  the 
whole  story  takes  place  in  the  hen-yard  makes  it 
impossible  to  take  it  seriously.  But  in  Troilus 
and  Criseyde,  Chaucer  deliberately  interpolates 
three,  quite  unnecessary,  stanzas  in  Book  V, 
in  which  he  discusses  whence  dreams  spring : — 


VIEWS  ON  MEN  AND  THINGS    209 

For  prestes  of  the  temple  tellen  this, 
That  dremes  been  the  revelaciouns 
Of  goddes,  and  as  wel  they  telle,  y-wis. 
That  they  ben  inf ernals  illusiouns ; 
And  leches  ^  seyn,  that  of  complexiouns  ^ 
Proceden  they,  or  fast,  or  glotonye,^ 
Who  woot  in  sooth  thus  what  they  signi- 
fye?  .  .  . 

Again  in  the  opening  lines  of  the  Hous  of 
Fame  he  asks  the  same  question : — 

God  turn  us  every  dreem  to  gode  ! 

For  hit  is  wonder,  by  the  rode. 

To  my  wit,  what  causeth  swevenes  * 

Either  on  morwes,  or  on  evenes ; 

And  why  th'  effect  folweth  of  somme, 

And  of  somme  hit  shal  never  come.  .  .  . 

and  again,  characteristically,  refuses  to  give 
any  opinion  on  the  matter — 

For  I  of  noon  opinioun 
Nil  as  now  make  mencioun. 

But  if  Chaucer  is  chary  of  committing  himself 
on  speculative  matters  such  as  these,  with 
regard  to  practical  morality  he  has  no  such 
hesitation.  It  was  the  fashion  of  the  day  to 
draw  a  moral  from  the  most  unlikely  stories, 
and  Chaucer,  while  he  never  forces  an  applica- 
tion after  the  manner  of  Gower  or  the  com- 

1  doctors.  2  temperament.  ^  gluttony. 

*  dreamers, 
o 


210       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

ipiler  of  the  Gesta  Romanorum,  is  sufficiently 

*  in  sympathy  with  the  spirit  of  his  age  to 

j  conform  to  the  practice  when   opportunity 

^  occurs.     The  Somnour,  who,  by  the  way,  has 

just  had  a  violent  quarrel  with  the  Friar, 

preaches  an  admirable    homily  against  Ire, 

illustrating    it,     after    the    most    approved 

method,   with  an  apt  anecdote.      The    Par- 

jdoner,    as    we    have    seen,  inveighs    against 

[drunkenness,  as  does  Chau-cer  himself  in  the 

iMan  of  Lawes  Tale.      The  simple  statement 

of  Averagus — 

Southe  is  the  hyeste  thing  that  man   may 
kepe — 

IS  a  sermon  in  itself,  and  the  Maunciple  ends 
his  distinctly  unijioral  tale  with  some  ex- 
cellent advice  of  his  dame's : — 

My  sone,  keep  wel  thy  tonge,  and  keep  thy 

f reend,  -^ 
A  wikked  tonge  is  worse  than  a  fend  ^ 
My  sone,  god  of  his  endelees  goodnesse 
Walled  a  tonge  with  teeth  and  lippes  eek. 
For  man  sholde  him  avyse  what  he  speke.  .  .  . 

It    would    be    possible    to    multiply    in- 
stances   almost    indefinitely.      Perhaps    the 
most  striking  of  all  is  the  sudden,  unexpected 
moral   application   which   ends    Troilus   and 
1  fiend. 


VIEWS  ON  MEN  AND  THINGS    211 

Criseyde.  We  have  followed  the  passion  and 
sins  of  the  lovers,  we  have  wept  with  Troilus 
and  forgiven  Cressida  in  spite  of  ourselves, 
and  all  at  once,  while  our  minds  are  still 
tuned  to  the  rapture  and  sweetness  of  a  love- 
story,  Chaucer  turns  to  bid  us  note  the  end  of 
life  and  love : — 

O  yonge  fresshe  folkes,  he  or  she, 

In  which  that  love  up  groweth  with  your  age, 

Repeyreth  hoom  from  worldly  vanitee, 

And  of  your  herte  up-casteth  the  visage 

To  thilke  god  that  after  his  image 

Yow  made,  and  thinketh  al  nis  but  a  fayre 

This  world,  that  passeth  sone  as  floures  fayre. 

And  loveth  him,  the  which  that  right  for  love 
Upon  a  cros,  our  soules  for  to  beye 
First  starf ,  and  roos,^  and  sit  in  heven  a-bove ; 
For  he  nil  f alsen  no  wight,  dar  I  seye, 
That  wol  his  herte  al  hoolly  ^  on  him  leye. 
And  sin  he  best  to  love  is,  and  most  meke, 
What  nedeth  f eyned  loves  for  to  seke  ? 

In  politics,  as  in  religion,  Chaucer  shows  him- 
self keenly  alive  to  the  evils  and  abuses  of 
the  day,  and  yet  no  partisan.  The  author  of 
Piers  Plowman  has  left  us  a  picture  of  the 
bitter  poverty  of  the  peasant  class.  The 
complaint  of  Peace  against  Wrong  (Passus  4), 
^  died  and  rose,  *  wholly. 


212       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

shows  how  he  has  carried  oft  his  wife  and  stolen 
both  geese  and  grys  (pigs) : — 

He  maynteneth  his  men  to  murthere  myne 

hewen,^ 
Forstalleth  my  feires,^  and  fighteth   in   my 

chepyng,3 
And  breketh  up  my  bernes  dore  *  and  bereth 

awey  my  whete 

•  o  •  »  •  ••  • 

I  am  noght  hardy  for  hym  unethe  to  loke ;  ^ 

and  how  completely  the  poor  were  at  the 
mercy  of  the  rich.  When  a  peasant  died,  his 
lord  had  a  right  to  his  best  possession,  and  if 
he  owned  not  less  than  three  cows,  the  parson 
of  the  parish  took  the  next  best,  a  condition 
of  things  against  which  we  find  Sir  David 
Lyndsay  protesting,  as  late  as  1560,  in  his 
Satyr e  of  the  Three  Estaats.  John  Ball,  "  the 
mad  priest  of  Kent,"  for  twenty  years  com- 
bined the  preaching  of  Lollardy  with  that 
of  a  kind  of  rough  socialism,  and  the  rude 
rhyme  which  contained  the  kernel  of  his 
teaching — 

When  Adam  delved  and  Eve  span. 
Who  was  then  the  gentleman  ? — 

1  servants.  ^  f^irs.  ^  market. 

*  breaketh  down  my  bam  door. 

^  I  scarcely  dare  look  round,  on  account  of  him. 


VIEWS   ON  MEN  AND  THINGS    213 

went  the  round  of  the  Midlands  and  helped 
to  fan  the  flame  of  discontent  which  finally 
broke  into  the  wide-spread  conflagration  of 
the  Peasants'  Revolt.  It  was  a  time  when  new 
ideals  were  slowly  struggling  to  find  expres- 
sion, and  the  old  order  of  feudalism  was 
passing  away  for  ever.  But  while  the  nobles 
were  divided  by  factions  among  themselves, 
and  the  poor  beat  bleeding  hands  against  the 
prison  walls  that  hemmed  them  in,  the  middle 
class  was  steadily  increasing  in  wealth  and 
prosperity,  and  it  is  with  this  class  that 
Chaucer  chiefly  concerns  himself.  The  major- 
ity of  the  Canterbury  pilgrims  are  prosperous, 
well-to-do  tradesmen  and  artisans : — 

Hir  knyves  were  y-chaped  ^  noght  with  bras 
But  al  with  silver,  wroght  ful  clene  and  well, 
Hir  girdles  and  hir  pouches  every-deel. 
Wei  semed  ech  of  hem  a  fair  burgeys   . 
To  sitten  in  a  yeldhall  ^  on  a  deys.^ 
Everich,  for  the  wisdom  that  he  can, 
Was  shaply  ^  for  to  been  an  alderman. 
For  catel  hadde  they  y-nogh  and  rente. 
And  eek  hir  wy ves  wolde  it  wel  assente ; 
And  elles  certain  were  they  to  blame. 
It  is  ful  fair  to  been  y-clept  "  ma  dame,''^ 
And  goon  to  vigilyes  ^  al  bif ore, 
And  have  a  mantel  royalliche  y-bore. 

1  tipped.        2  guild-hall.        ^  ^^^^        4  suitable. 

^  Service  held  on  the  vigils  of  Saints'  Days. 


214       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

This  is  something  very  different  from  Lang- 
land's  ^  picture  of  Dawe  the  dykere  dying  of 
hunger,  or  the  poor  farmer  dining  on  bean- 
bread  and  bran.  Even  the  Plowman  seems 
fairly  well  off : — 

His  tythes  payed  he  ful  faire  and  wel, 
Bothe  of  his  propre  swink  ^  and  his  eatel, 

and  the  general  impression  is  one  of  comfort, 
which  even  rises  to  a  certain  mild  luxury. 
The  pilgrims  are  well  fed  and  well  clothed,  they 
have  horses  to  ride,  and  can  afford  to  call  at 
the  ale-house  as  they  pass.  They  fill  the  air 
with  the  sound  of  laughter  and  song  as  they 
ride,  and  we  can  well  understand  the  Lollard 
Thorpe's  complaint  (made  more  than  ten 
years  after  Chaucer  wrote  his  Canterbury 
Tales)  that,  "  What  with  the  noise  of  their 
singing,  and  with  the  sound  of  their  piping, 
and  with  the  jangling  of  their  Canterburie 
bells,  and  with  the  barking  out  of  dogges  after 
them  .  .  .  they  {i.  e.  pilgrims)  make  more 
noisjp  than  if  the  king  came  there  away  with 
all  his  clarions  and  many  other  minstrels  " 
{WycUffs  Works,  ed.  Arnold,  L  83).  Even 
in  the  tales  themselves  little  hint  is  given  of 

^  The  name  Langland  is  used  for  convenience  sake,  to 
denote  the  author,  or  authors  of  Piers  Plowman. 
2  his  own  labour. 


VIEWS   ON  MEN  AND  THINGS    215 

the  darker  side  of  the  picture.  We  get  a 
glimpse  of  the  relation  between  lord  and 
vassal,  in  the  Clerkes  Tale,  but  no  comment 
is  made  on  it.  Griselda  is  carrying  her  water- 
pot  back  from  the  well,  when  she  hears  the 
marquis  calling  her : — 

And  she  set  doun  her  water-pot  anoon     \ 
Bisyde  the  threshfold,  in  an  oxes  stalle, 
And  doun  up-on  hir  knees  she  gan  to  falle, 
And  with  sad  contenance  kneleth  stille         \ 
Til  she  had  herd  what  was  the  lordes  wille. 

Apparently  there  is  nothing  in  this  incident 
to  attract  the  attention  of  a  fourteenth-century 
poet.  It  is  quite  natural  to  kneel  on  the 
floor  of  the  cow-shed  when  your  lord  honours 
you  by  seeking  you  there  and  giving  his 
commands  in  person. 

That  Chaucer  has  no  very  high  opinion  of 
the  intelligence  or  reliability  of  a  mob  is 
shown,  not  only  by  his  sketches  of  crowds,  but 
by  such  passages  as  that  in  the  Clerkes  Tale 
where  he  breaks  oft  the  story  to  apostrophise 
the  people :« — 

O  stormy  peple  !  unsad  ^  and  ever  untrewe 
As  undiscreet  and  chaunging  as  a  vane, 
Delyting  ever  in  rumbel  that  is  newe. 
For  lyk  the  mone  ay  wexe  ye  and  wane ; 

}  unstable./ 


216       CHAUCER   AND   HIS   TIMES 

A  ful  of  clapping,^  dere  y-nogh  a  jane^ 
Your  doom   is  fals,   your  Constance  yvel 

preveth,^ 
A  ful  greet  fool  is  he  that  on  yow  leveth. 

But  at  the  same  time  he  realises  that  poverty 
has  its  rights.  The  earlier  version  of  the 
Prologue  to  the  Legend  of  Good  Women  con- 
tains much  excellent  advice  to  King  Richard : — 

For  he  that  king  or  lord  is  naturel, 

Him  oghte  nat  be  tiraunt  or  cruel, 

As  is  a  fermour,^  to  doon  the  harm  he  can. 

He  moste  thinke  hit  is  his  lige  man. 

And  that  him  oweth,  of  verray  duetee 

Shewen  his  peple  pleyn  benignitie 

And  wel  to  here  hir  excusatiouns, 

And  hir  compleyntes  and  peticiouns.  .  .  . 

The  Lenvoy  which  ends  the  balade  of  Ldk 
of  Stedfastnesse  holds  up  a  noble  ideal  of 
kingship : — 

O  prince,  desyre  to  be  honourable, 
Cherish  thy  folk  and  hate  extorcioun  ! 
Suffre  no  thing,  that  may  be  reprevable 
To  thyn  est  at,  doon  in  thy  regioun. 
Shew  forth  thy  swerd  of  castigacioun, 
Dred  God,  do  law,  love  trouthe  and  worthi- 

nesse. 
And  wed  thy  folk  agein  to  stedfastnesse. 

^  chatter.     ^  dear  at  a  Jane,  i.  e.  a  small  Genoese  coin. 
3  Your  judgment  is  false,  your  constancy  proves  evil. 
^  t.  e.  one  who  farms  taxes. 


VIEWS  ON  MEN  AND   THINGS    217 

And  in  the  Persones  Tale  the  duties  of  the 
rich  towards  the  poor  are  set  forth  in  con- 
siderable detail.  Superfluity  of  clothing  and 
absurdly  slashed  and  ornamented  garments  are 
to  be  avoided  because  "  the  more  that  clooth 
is  wasted,  the  more  it  costeth  to  the  peple  for 
the  scantnesse ;  and  forther-over,  if  so  be  that 
they  wolde  yeven  such  pounsoned  and  dagged  ^ 
clothing  to  the  povre  folk,  it  is  nat  convenient 
to  were  for  hir  estaat,  ne  suffisant  to  bete  hir 
necessitee,  to  kepe  hem  fro  the  distemperance 
of  the  firmament."  Lords  are  bidden  to  take 
no  pride  in  their  position,  and  do  no  wrong 
to  those  dependent  on  them  :  "I  rede  thee, 
certes,  that  thou,  lord,  werke  in  swiche  wyse 
with  thy  cherles,  that  they  rather  love  thee 
than  drede.  I  woot  wel  ther  is  degree  above 
degree,  as  reson  is ;  and  skije  it  is  that  men  do 
hir  devoir  ther-as  is  due;  but  certes,  ex- 
torciouns  and  despit  of  youre  underlinges  is 
dampnable."  Chaucer's  inborn  sense  of  jus- 
tice will  not  allow  him  to  condone  oppression, 
and  his  speculative  and  inquiring  mind  is  fully 
conscious  of  the  artificiality  of  r^nk.  From 
the  Parson  we  might  expect  a  homily  on  the 
fact  that  ''  we  ben  alle  of  o  fader  and  of  o 
moder ;  and  alle  we  been  of  o  nature  roten  and 

^  pierced  and  cut  into  points. 


218       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

corrupt,  both  riche  and  povre,"  but  it  is  more 
surprising  to  find  the  Wife  of  Bath  holding 
forth  in  the  same  strain.  Her  tale  describes 
the  bitter  feeling  of  Florent  when  he  finds 
himself  bound  to  a  wife  old,  ugly,  and  of  base 
degree.  The  bride  answers  with  a  disquisition 
on  true  nobility : — 

But  for  ye  speken  of  swich  gentillesse 

As  is  descended  out  of  old  richesse. 

And  that  therfore  sholden  ye  be  gentil  men, 

Swich  arrogance  is  nat  worth  a  hen. 

Loke  who  that  is  most  vertuous  alwey, 

Privee  and  apert,^  and  most  entendeth 

To  do  the  gentil  dedes  that  he  can, 

An  tak  him  for  the  grettest  gentil  man. 

Crist  wol,  we  clayme  of  him  our  gentilesse, 

Nat  of  our  eldres  for  hir  old  richesse. 

For  thogh  they  yeve  us  al  hir  heritage. 

For  which  we  clayme  to  been  of  heigh  parage,^ 

Yet  may  they  nat  biquethe,  for  no-thing. 

To  noon  of  us  hir  vertuous  living, 

That  made  hem  gentil  men  y-called  be. 


Heer  may  ye  see  wel,  how  that  genterye 
Is  nat  annexed  to  possessioun 

Redeth  Senek,  and  redeth  eek  Boece, 
Ther  shul  ye  seen  express  that  it  no  drede  is 
That  he  is  gentil  that  doth  gentil  dedis. 

John  Ball  himself  could  hardly  go  further. 
^  in  secret  and  openly.  ^  birth. 


VIEWS  ON  MEN  AND  THINGS    219 

Possibly  Chaucer's  personal  experience  of 
the  occasional  difficulty  of  making  both  ends 
meet,  quickened  his  sympathy,  with  poor 
men.  It  is  true  that  Florent's  wife,  in  the 
lines  which  follow  those  just  quoted,  goes  on 
to  defend  poverty  against  riches  on  the 
ground  that  it  is 

A  ful  greet  bringer  out  of  bisinesse, 

but  though  she  calls  cheerful  poverty  "  an 
honest  thing,"  she  is  forced  to  own  that  at 
best  it  is  "  hateful  good."  The  Man  of  Law, 
in  the  prologue  to  his  tale,  speaks  of  it  with 
undisguised  bitterness : — 

Herken  what  is  the  sentence  of  the  wyse  : — 
"  Bet  is  to  dyen  than  have  indigence ;  "  ^ 

"  Thy  selve  neighebour  wol  thee  despyse ;  "     / 
If  thou  be  poore,  farwel  thy  reverence  ! 


If  thou  be  povre,  thy  brother  hateth  thee, 

And  all  thy  freendes  fleen  fro  thee,  alas  !  / 

O  riche  marchaunts,  ful  of  wele  ben  ye,  / 

O  noble,  O  prudent  folk  as  in  this  cas  1  / 

And  Chaucer's  lines  to  his  empty  purse  show 
that  he  had  no  wish  to  share  the  pleasant 
security  of  those  who  are  able,  as  Florent's 
wife  says,  to  sing  and  play  in  the  presence  of   [ 
thieves. 

In  yet  a  third  respect,  Chaucer  shows  him- 


220       CHAUCER  AND   HIS   TIMES 

self  able  to  discriminate  between  the  use  and 
j  abuse  of  a  thing.  He  can  expose  and  de- 
.  nounce  hypocrisy  without  losing  his  reverence 
Ipor  true  religion;  he  can  point  out  evils  in 
social  life,  without  siding  wholly  with  nobles 
or  people;  he  can  laugh  at  the  folly  which 
allows  itself  to  be  deluded  by  charlatanism, 
without  losing  his  respect  for  science.  Two 
hundred  years  had  yet  to  pass  before  Bacon 
should  raise  science,  once  and  for  all,  above 
the  level  where  it  lay  confused  with  magic 
jand  the  black  art.  A  generation  to  whom 
gunpowder  was  a  novelty,  and  spectacles  an 
almost  miraculous  aid  to  sight,  found  nothing 
strange  in  the  sight  of  learned  men  seeking 
for  the  elixir  of  life,  or  the  philosopher's  stone. 
In  a  world  which  was  but  just  becoming  dimly 
conscious  of  the  mighty  forces  which  lie  at 
man's  command,  limitations  were  unknown, 
and  the  boundary  line  between  the  possible 
and  impossible  was  so  uncertain  as  to  be 
negligible.  The  populace  which  believed  that 
every  sage  could  summon  legions  of  devils  to 
his  assistance,  was  not  likely  to  criticise  his 
pretensions  too  closely,  and  doubtless  many 
a  quack  saw,  and  seized,  the  opportunity  for 
imposing  on  the  easy  credulity  of  a  greedy 
and  wonder-loving  people. 


VIEWS   ON  MEN  AND  THINGS    221 

Chaucer  shows  a  real  interest  in  such  rudi- 
mentary science  as  he  was  able  to  pick  up  in 
the  midst  of  his  other  avocations.  Clocks  of 
any  kind  were  rare  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
and  the  practice  of  telling  the  time  by 
astronomical  observations  was  a  common 
one.  There  is  nothing  peculiar  in  noting  the 
season  or  the  hour  by  such  statements  as 
that 

the  yonge  sonne 
Hath  in  the  Ram  his  halfe  cours  y-ronncc 

or. 

He  wiste  it  was  the  eightetehe  day 

Of  April,  that  is  messager  to  May ; 

And  sey  wel  that  the  shadwe  of  every  tree 

Was  as  the  lengthe  the  same  quantitee 

That  was  the  body  erect  that  caused  it. 

And  therefore  by  the  shadwe  he  took  his  wit 

That  Phebus,  which  that  shoon  so  clere  and 

brighte, 
Degrees  was  f y ve  and  fourty  clombe  on  highte ; 
And  for  that  day,  as  in  that  latitude. 
It  was  ten  of  the  clokke,  he  gan  conclude ; 

but  Chaucer  not  only  follows  this  method  with 
an  amount  of  detail  and  a  persistency  which 
show  that  he  enjoyed  it  for  its  own  sake,  he 
also,  as  we  have  seen,  writes  a  treatise  on  the 
use  of  the  Astrolabe,  for  the  instruction  of  his 
little  son.     The  modesty  and  sincerity  shown 


222       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

in  the  introduction  are  worthy  of  a  true  scien- 
tist. After  saying  that  he  purposes  to  teach 
Uttle  Lewis  "  a  certain  nombre  of  conclusions," 
Chaucer  continues,  "  I  seye  a  certein  of  con- 
clusiouns,  for  three  causes.  The  furste  cause 
is  this  :  truste  wel  that  alle  the  conclusiouns 
that  have  ben  f ounde,  or  elles  possibly  mighten 
be  founde  in  so  noble  an  instrument  as  an 
Astrolabie,  ben  un-knowe  perfitly  to  any 
mortal  man  in  this  regioun,  as  I  suppose.  A 
nother  cause  is  this ;  that  sothly,  in  any  tretis 
of  the  Astrolabie  that  I  have  seyn,  there  ben 
some  conclusiouns  that  wole  nat  in  alle  thinges 
performen  hir  bihestes;  and  some  of  them 
ben  harde  to  thy  tendre  age  of  ten  yeer  to 
conseyve."  He  then  explains  his  reason  for 
writing  in  English  instead  of  Latin,  and 
finally  declares  :  "I  nam  but  a  lewd  compila- 
tour  of  the  labour  of  olde  Astrologiens,  and 
have  hit  translated  in  myn  English  only  for 
thy  doctrine ;  and  with  this  swerd  shall  I  sleen 
^  envye."  The  whole  Prologue  is  well  .worth 
reading  if  only  for  the  light  it  throws  upon 
Chaucer's  view  of  education  and  the  power  it 
displays  of  entering  into  a  child's  mind. 
Scattered  references  to  astronomy,  medicine, 
chemistry,  and  even  astrolog^>jrflTe  to  be 
found  throughout  the  Cants^m^Tales.     The 


VIEWS  ON  MEN  AND   THINGS    223 

Franklin  shows  himself  well  abreast  of  scien- 
tific discovery  when  he  speaks  of 

This  wyde  world,  which  that  men  seye  is 
round. 

Chaucer  himself  in  the  Prologue  reels  off  a  list 
of  medicaments  which  might  be  expected  to 
improve  the  Somnour's  complexion.  Pertelote 
shows  a  housewifely  knowledge  of  the  pro- 
perties of  herbs. 

One  tale,  indeed,  turns  on  the  pseudo- 
science  of  the  day.  After  the  second  Nun 
has  finished  her  tale  of  St.  Cecilia  the  pilgrims 
ride  in  silence  for  awhile,  till,  close  to  Boghton 
under  Blee,  they  are  joined  by  a  Canon  and 
his  man.  The  Canon's  Yeoman  soon  begins 
to  boast  of  his  master's  marvellous  powers, 
how 

That  al  this  ground  on  which  we  ben  ryding. 
Til  that  we  come  to  Caunterbury  toun, 
He  coude  al  clene  turne  it  up-so-doun. 
And  pave  it  al  of  silver  and  of  gold. 

Whereupon  the  Host  blesses  himself,  and  asks, 
not  unnaturally,  why  if  the  Canon  "is  of  so 
heigh  prudence,"  he .  wears  such  poor  and 
dirty  clothes?    The  Yeoman  answers  that 

— whan  a  man  hath  over-greet  a  wit 
Ful  oft  him  happeth  to  misusen  it ; 
So  dooth  my  lord  .  .  . 


224       CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

and  is  proceeding  to  dilate  upon  the  hard 
share  of  the  work  that  falls  to  himself, 
when  the  Canon,  who  is  nervous  as  to  what 
he  may  be  saying,  with  some  sharpness  bids 
him  hold  his  tongue.  The  Host,  however,  has 
no  intention  of  allowing  his  authority  to  be 
over-ridden : — 

"  Ye,"   quod  our  host,   "  telle  on,   what  so 

bityde ; 
Of  al  his  threting  rekke  nat  a  myte  !  "  ^ 
*'  In  feith,"  quod  he,  "  namore  I  do  but  lyte." 

On  which  the  Canon  sets  spurs  to  his  horse  and 
gallops  off,  leaving  his  character  behind  him, 
and  the  Yeoman  settles  down  to  tell  the  story 
of  the  foolish  priest  and  the  charlatan.  The 
false  Canon  borrows  a  mark  from  the  priest, 
promising  to  return  it  within  three  days : — 

And  at  the  thridde  day  broghte  his  moneye. 
And  to  the  preest  he  took  his  gold  agayn. 
Whereof  this  preest  was  wonder  glad  and  fayn. 

The  Canon  protests  that  under  no  circum- 
stances would  he  ever  dream  of  breaking  his 
word : — 

"  ther  was  never  man  yet  yvel  apayd 
For  gold  ne  silver  that  he  to  me  lente  .  .  . 

and  in  token  of  friendship  he  offers,  if  the 
^  do  not  care  a  farthing. 


VIEWS  ON  MEN  AND  THINGS    225 

priest  will  send  for  some  quicksilver,  to  show 
him  a  marvel. 

"  Sir,"  quod  the  preest,  "  it  shal  be  doon  y- 

wis." 
He  bad  his  servant  fecchen  him  this  thing.  .  .  . 

The  Canon  then  orders  a  fire  to  be  prepared, 
and  with  much  parade  makes  ready  a  crucible. 
He  carefully  shuts  the  door  and  pretends  to 
be  most  anxious  lest  any  one  should  see  what 
they  are  doing.  Not  till  the  servant  has 
gone  out,  and  he  and  the  priest  are  alone,  does 
he  solemnly  cast  various  powders  on  to  the 
blazing  coals,  "  To  blynde  with  the  preest." 
Finally,  while  his  unfortunate  victim  is  busy 
blowing  the  fire  and  making  himself  generally 
useful,  the  false  Canon  so  manipulates  things 
that  an  ingot  of  silver  appears  in  the  crucible. 
He  repeats  the  trick  three  times,  and  so 
impresses  "  this  sotted  preest  "  that  the  poor 
dupe 

the  somnee  of  f  ourty  pound  anon 
Of  nobles  fette,^  and  took  hem  everichon 
To  this  chanoun,  for  this  ilke  receit.  .  .  . 

After  which,  needless  to  say,  the  Canon  dis- 
appears. 

The    whole    story    teems    with    technical 
terms,  with  descensories,  and  sublimatories, 

^  fetched. 
P 


226      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

and  cucurbites,  with  bole  armoniak  and 
orpiment,  and  the  Uke.  It  shows  an  ultimate 
knowledge  of  the  laboratory  work  of  the 
day,  of  vessels  and  retorts,  of  chemicals  and 
minerals  and  their  various  properties.  At  the 
same  time,  it  proves  that  Chaucer  was  well 
aware  of  the  ease  with  which  a  very  little 
knowledge  combined  with  a  great  deal  of 
assurance  would  enable  a  quack  to  impose  on 
the  absolute  ignorance  of  the  iminitiated. 
The  charlatan  who  tried  to  impose  upon  the 
author  of  the  Chanouns  Yemannes  Tale  would 
soon  have  found  out  his  mistake. 

And  yet,  with  all  his  shrewdness,  Chaucer 
was  not  wholly  exempt  from  the  superstition 
of  his  age.  Such  vulgar  trickery  as  that  just 
described  would  never  have  imposed  on  him, 
but  he  is  too  truly  fourteenth  century  in  his 
point  of  view  always  to  distinguish  between 
astronomy  and  astrology.  The  thought  that 
a  man's  destiny  may  be  written  in  the  stars 
appealed  to  this  lover  of  dreams.  In  the 
Man  of  Lawes  Tale  he  breaks  away  from  his 
original,  to  speculate  on  this  subject: — 

Paraventure  in  thilke  large  book 
Which  that  men  clepe  the  heven,  y-writen  was 
With  sterres,  when  that  he  (i.  e.  the  Soldan) 
his  birthe  took 


VIEWS  ON  MEN  AND  THINGS    227 

That  he  for  love  shulde  han  his  deeth,  alias  ! 
For  in  the  sterres,  clerer  than  is  glas, 
Is  writen,  god  wot,  who-so  coulde  it  rede, 
The  deeth  of  every  man,  withouten  drede. 

And  again,  after  describing  the  grief  of 
Constance  at  parting  from  her  parents,  he 
vehemently  exclaims  against  the  unfortunate 
conjunction  of  constellations  which  wrought 
such  havoc,  and  asks  if  there  were  no  "  philo- 
sophre  "  to  advise  the  emperor  to  consult  some 
astrologer  as  to  which  was  the  auspicious 
time  for  him  to  marry. 

Certain  aspects  of  Chaucer's  character  stand 
out  with  unmistakable  clearness  in  his  works. 
The  most  careless  reader  could  hardly  fail  to 
be  struck  by  his  wide  sympathies,  ready 
humour,  keen  obsgrvaH5n77an3"Eonesty^  of 
mind.  His  jdeaJisma^hi^  jppet^^^^ 
tcTthe  more  imaginatiye^idejof  life,  are  per- 
haps less  often  insisted  upon,  but  are  no  less 
real.  He  is  no  visionary,  afraid  to  face  the' 
facts  of  life,  dwelling  in  a  world  of  beauty  and) 
delight  which  has  no  counterpart  on  earth,) 
but  a  poet  who  takes  no  shame  in  humanj 
nature,  whose  eyes  see  so  clearly  that  they\ 
are  not  blinded  by  evil,  who  dares  to  say,  with' 
his  Creator,  that  the  world  is  good.  In  theJ 
Book  of  the  Duchesse  is  a  passage  which  ex- 


228      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

plains  much  of  Chaucer's  so-called  worldliness. 
He  is  speaking  of  Blanche's  innocent  kindli- 
ness, and  how  he  never  knew  one  less 

Harmful,  than  she  was  in  doing; 

and  he  adds,  in  words  as  bold  as  Milton's  own, 

I  sey  nat  that  she  ne  had  knowing 

What  was  harm ;  or  elles  she 

Had  coud  ^  no  good,  so  thinketh  me. 

He  has  little  respect  for  a  fugitive  and  clois- 
tered virtue.  But  if  he  is,  perhaps,  over- 
ready  to  plunge  into  the  dust  and  din  of 
ordinary  life,  he  never  forgets  the  wonder  and 
mystery  that  lie  behind  the  commonplace. 

^  known. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


Few  poets  have  received  more  immediate 
and  widespread  recognition  than  Chaucer. 
Fifteenth-century  poetry  was  almost  wholly 
dominated  by  his  influence,  and  one  united 
chorus  of  praise  and  admiration  rises  from 
the  lips  of  his  successors.  Shirley,  who  edited 
the  Knightes  Tale  (amongst  other  works  of 
Chaucer's)  in  the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  speaks  of  him  as  "  the  laureal  and 
most  famous  poete  that  euer  was  to-fore  him 
as  in  th'embelisshing  of  oure  rude  modern 
englisshe  tonge.  .  .  ."  Lydgate  and  Occleve, 
the  most  noted  poets  of  the  period,  invariably 
refer  to  him  as  their  master.  As  has  already 
been  mentioned,  a  large  number  of  poems  were 
written  in  close  imitation  of  his  style,  and 
echoes  of  his  verse  are  to  be  heard  on  every 
side. 

It  is  usual  to  divide  his  followers  into  two 
groups :  English  Chaucerians  and  Scottish 
Chaucerians. 

229 


230      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

The  English  Chaucerians,  with  all  their 
admiration  for  their  master,  show  but  scant 
understanding  of  his  real  greatness.  Having 
little  ear  for  rhythm  themselves,  they  only 
mangle  his  verse  when  they  try  to  imitate  it; 
and  while  they  fully  recognise  the  debt  which 
English  versification  owes  him,  it  is  but  rarely 
that  their  own  lines  show  any  hint  of  his 
sweetness  and  melody.  Lydgate  is  by  far 
the  greatest  of  them,  and  of  him  Professor 
Saintsbury  justly  remarks  :  "  It  is  enough  to 
say  that,  even  in  rime  royal,  his  lines  wander 
from  seven  to  fourteen  syllables,  without  the 
possibility  of  allowing  monosyllabic  or  tri- 
syllabic feet  in  any  fashion  that  shall  restore 
the  rhythm;  and  that  his  couplets,  as  in  the 
Story  of  Thebes  itself,  seem  often  to  be  unaware 
whether  they  are  themselves  octosyllabic  or 
decasyllabic — four-footed,  or  five-footed." 
Instead  of  the  suppleness  and  endless  variety 
of  Chaucer's  verse,  we  have  a  treatment  of 
metre  which  at  its  best  is  apt  to  be  dull  and 
stiff,  and  at  its  worst  is  intolerably  slipshod. 
Only  by  some  rare  chance  does  a  momentary 
gleam  of  beauty  flicker  across  these  pages, 
and  a  flash  of  poetic  feeling  raise  the  trite 
and  conventional  language  to  such  a  level 
as: — 


CHAUCER'S  INFLUENCE         231 

O  thoughtful  herte,  plonged  in  dystresse, 
With  slomber  of  slouthe  this  longe  winter's 
night — 

Out  of  the  slepe  of  mortal  hevinesse 
Awake  anon  !   and  loke  upon  the  light 

Of  thilke  Starr.     (Lydgate,  Life  of  Our  Lady.) 

Nor  is  the  matter  much  more  inspiring 
than  the  form  that  clothes  it.  The  English 
Chaucerians  are  worthy  men,  who  spend  their 
time  in  bewailing  the  errors  of  their  youth  and 
offering  good  advice  to  whoso  will  accept  it. 
Of  Chaucer's  humour  and  realism  they  have 
no  conception,  nor  do  they  realise  the  force 
of  his  digressions.  The  allegorical  form  of 
his  earlier  poems  appeals  to  them,  and,  disre- 
garding the  movement  and  life  of  the  Canter- 
bury Tales^  they  ramble  along  the  paths 
marked  out  in  the  Hous  of  Fame  without 
attending  to  their  master's  excellent  advice 
to  flee  prolixity.  Lydgate,  it  is  true,  does 
show  some  narrative  power.  His  Troy  Book 
is  obviously  inspired  by  Troilus  and  Creseyde, 
and  his  Story  of  Thebes  by  the  Knightes  Tale, 
but  he  has  neither  the  conciseness  of  Gower 
nor  the  dramatic  insight  of  Chaucer.  Among 
the  114  works  attributed  to  him,  it  is  only 
natural  that  some  variety  should  be  shown, 
and  occasionally,  as  in  the  London  Lickpenny^ 


232      CHAUCER  AND   HIS   TIMES 

a  skit  on  contemporary  life  in  the  City,  he 
shows  some  trace  of  humour.  The  Temple  of 
Glds  is  a  close  imitation  of  the  Hous  of  Fame^ 
but'  it  lacks  the  shrewd  sense,  the  original 
comments  on  life,  the  subtle  humour  of  its 
model.  Lydgate  is  most  poetical  when  his 
religious  feeling  is  touched,  as  in  his  Life  of 
Our  Lady  ;  and  most  human  when  he  becomes 
frankly  autobiographical.  The  stiffness  of 
the  Temple  of  Glas  is  redeemed  by  such 
passages  as  that  in  which  the  author  (who 
entered  a  monastery  at  fifteen)  describes  the 
lamentations  of  those 

That  were  constrayned  in  hir  tender  youthe 

And  in  childhode,  as  it  is  ofte  couthe  ^ 

Yentered  were  into  religion  ^ 

Or  they  hade  yeares  of  discresioun ; 

That  al  her  life  cannot  but  complein 

In  wide  copes  perfeccion  to  feine. 

Occleve,  who  has  even  less  poetic  genius 
than  Lydgate,  is  remembered  chiefly  because 
the  manuscript  of  his  Gouvernail  of  Princes 
(a  poem  of  good  advice,  addressed  to  Prince 
Hal)  contains  the  only  authentic  portrait  of 
Chaucer — a  sketch  drawn  in  the  margin  by 
the  author  himself.     The  lines  which  accom- 

^  known. 

2  Entered  were  into  religion,   ».  c.   were  placed  in  a 
monastery. 


CHAUCER'S   INFLUENCE         233 

pany  the  portrait,  sufficiently  illustrate  the 
estimation  in  which  Chaucer  was  held.  Their 
modesty  and  simple  affection  disarm  criticism. 

Symple  is  my  goste,  and  scars  my  letterure  ^ 

Unto  youre  excellence  for  to  write 
My  inward  love,  and  yit  in  aventure 

Wol  I  me  put,  thogh  I  can  but  lyte ; 
My  dere  maister — God  his  soule  quyte, — ^ 
And   fader,    Chaucer,    fayne   wold   have   me 

taught. 
But  I  was  duUe,  and  lerned  lyte  or  naught. 
Alias  !  my  worthy  maister  honorable. 

This  londes  verray  tresour  and  richesse, 
Dethe  by  thy  dethe  hath  harm  irreperable 

Unto  us  done  :   hir  vengeable  duresse  ^ 
Dispoiled  hath  this  londe  of  the  swetnesse 
Of  rethoryk,  for  unto  Tullius 
Was  never  man  so  lyk  amenges  us. 

She   myght  have  taryed   hir  vengeaunce  a 
whyle, 
Tyl  sum  man  hadde  egal  to  thee  be ; 

Nay,  let  be  that ;  she  wel  knew  that  this  yle  ^ 
May  never  man  forth  bringe  like  to  thee, 
And  her  office  needes  do  must  she ; 

God  bad  her  soo,  I  truste  as  for  the  beste, 

O  maystir,  maystir,  God  thy  soule  reste  ! 

His  consciousness  of  the  superiority  of  his 
master  did  not,  however,  prevent  him  from 

^  Simple  is  my  mind,  and  little  my  learning. 

2  repay.  ^  revengeful  cruelty.  *  isle. 


234      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

venturing  to  make  use  of  the  same  material, 
and  in  the  Chaste  Spouse  of  the  Emperor 
Gerelaus  he  re-tells  the  story  of  Constance. 

A  number  of  minor  poets  make  up  the  list. 
Benedict  Burgh — the  shadow  of  Chaucer's 
shadow — completed  The  Secrets  of  the  Philoso- 
pherSy  a  peculiarly  dull  poem  which  Lydgate 
left  unfinished  at  his  death.  Side  by  side 
with  him  worked  George  Ashby,  clerk  of  the 
signet  to  Queen  Margaret,  and  a  little  later 
comes  Henry  Bradshaw,  a  monk  of  St.  Wer- 
burgh's  Abbey  at  Chester.  They  are  all 
worthy,  honest  men,  who  utter  moral  plati- 
tudes with  an  air  of  conviction;  painstaking 
but  unskilful  apprentices  in  the  workshop  of 
poetry,  who  conscientiously  blunt  their  tools 
and  cut  their  fingers  in  a  vain  effort  to  do  the 
work  of  master  craftsmen.  One  curious  little 
development  is,  however,  worth  noticing.  In 
the  latter  half  of  the  fifteenth  century  two 
poets,  Sir  George  Ripley  and  Thomas  Norton, 
wrote  treatises  on  alchemy,  in  verse.  Ripley's 
The  Compound  of  Alchemy ^  or  the  Twelve 
Gates y  and  Norton's  Ordinall  of  Alchemy ,  owe 
their  interest  in  the  first  place  to  the  proof 
they  afford  that  verse  at  the  time  was  a  natural 
means  of  instruction  rather  than  an  end  in 
itself;  and  in  the  second  to  their  adventitious 


CHAUCER'S  INFLUENCE         235 

connection  with  the  Chanouns  Yemannes 
Tale.  Norton  endeavours  to  copy  the  Chau- 
cerian couplet,  and  Professor  Saintsbury 
suggests  that  he  is  probably  the  Th.  Norton 
whom  Ascham,  in  his  Scholemaster,  classes 
with  Chaucer,  Surrey,  Wyatt  and  Phaer,  as 
having  vainly  attempted  to  replace  accent 
by  rhyme. 

Stephen  Hawes  falls  into  a  class  somewhat 
apart.  Writing  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth 
and  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  he 
stands  at  the  parting  of  the  ways,  and  while 
his  poetry  shows  signs  of  the  new  influences 
that  were  at  work,  his  heart  is  evidently  with 
the  old  conventions  which  are  beginning  to 
pass  away.  His  chief  poem.  The  Pastime  of 
Pleasure,  or  the  Historye  of  Graunde  Amoure 
and  la  Bell  Pucell :  containing  the  Knowledge 
of  the  Seven  Sciences  and  the  Course  of  Man's 
Life  in  this  World,  is  sufficiently  described  by 
its  title.  It  stands,  as  it  were,  half-way  be- 
tween Chaucer  and  Spenser,  at  one  moment 
clearly  recalling  the  love  scenes  of  Troilus  and 
Criseyde,  at  another  reminding  us  equally 
forcibly  of  the  elaborate  and  ingenious  allegory 
of  the  Faerie  Queene.  The  combination  of 
chivalry  and  allegory  was  something  new,  and 
though  Hawes  himself  proved  incapable  of 


236      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

making  the  most  of  its  possibilities,  English 
literature  owes  him  a  real  debt.  He  never 
rises  to  any  great  height.  Mr.  Murison,  in 
his  chapter  on  Hawes  in  Vol.  II  of  the 
Cambridge  History  of  Literature,  draws  atten- 
tion to  certain  verbal  resemblances  between 
the  Passetyme  of  Pleasure  and  the  Faerie 
Queene,  but  the  passages  quoted  serve  only 
to  show  how  far  removed  the  music  of  Spenser 
is  from  the  speech  of  ordinary  men.  At  his 
worst  Hawes  sinks  beneath  the  lowest  level 
of  what  can  possibly  be  allowed  to  pass  as 
verse.  The  dialogue  between  Graunde  Amour 
and  Dame  Grammar  defies  parody  : — 

"  Madame,"  quod  I,  "  for  as  much  as  there  be 
Eight  partes  of  speche,  I  would  knowe  right 

faine, 
What  a  noune  substantive  is  in  his  degree ; 
And  wherefore  it  is  so  called  certaine  ? 
To  whom  she  answered  right  gentely  againe 
Saing  alway  that  a  noune  substantive 
Might  stand  without  helpe  of  an  adjective. 

That  the  stanza  of  Troilus  and  Criseyde 
should  be  used  for  such  stuff  as  this  is  un- 
bearable. 

The  Scottish  Chaucerians  are  of  far  more 
intrinsic  importance.  The  love-allegory  of 
the    Kingis    Quair    shows    the    influence    of 


CHAUCER'S  INFLUENCE         237 

Chaucer  not  only  in  its  use  of  the  Chaucerian 
stanza — henceforth  to  be  known  as  the 
rhyme  royal — but  in  the  evidence  it  affords 
of  its  author's  acquaintance  with  the  English 
version  of  the  Romance  of  the  Rose.  More- 
over, in  it  may  be  noticed  that  sympathy 
with  the  freshness  and  joy  of  nature  which 
forms  so  strong  a  bond  between  Chaucer  and 
his  Scottish  disciples,  and  is  so  conspicuous 
by  its  absence  in  the  work  of  the  English 
Chaucerians.  Emily  herself  might  well  walk 
in  the  garden  where 

...  on  the  smale  grene  twistis  ^  sat 
The  little  sweete  nyghtingale,  and  song 

So  loud  and  clear,  the  hymnes  consecrate 
Of  loves  use,  now  softe  now  loud  among, 

That  all  the  gard(e)nes  and  the  walles  rong 
Ryght  of  their  song,  and  on  the  copill  ^  next 
Of  their  sweet  harmony,  and  lo  the  text : 

"  Worschippe,  ye  that  loveres  be(ne)  this  May, 
For  of  your  bliss  the  kalendes  are  begonne, 
And  sing  with  us,  away  winter,  away, 
Come  sumer,  come,  the  sweet  season  and 
Sonne, 
Awake,     for    schame  1     that    have    your 
heavenes  wonne. 
And  amourously  lift  up  your  heades  all. 
Thank  Love  that  list  you  to  his  merei 
call;" 

^  twigs.  *  stanza. 


238      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

and  the  picture  of  Joan  Beaufort, 

The  fairest  or  the  freschest  yong(e)  fioure 
That  ever  I  sawe,   me  thoght,   before  that 
houre ; 

has  something  of  Chaucer's  daintiness  and 
grace. 

The  Scottish  poets  have,  also,  far  more 
sense  of  form  than  the  EngHsh.  Henryson's 
Testament  of  Cressid,  written  to  satisfy  its 
author's  thirst  for  poetic  justice  and  to  show 
Cressida  paying  the  penalty  of  her  misdeeds, 
with  all  its  conventional  morality,  for  sincerity 
of  feeling  and  felicity  of  style  will  bear  com- 
parison with  its  great  original.  His  fables 
show  a  quick  sense  of  humour,  a  combination 
of  tenderness  and  realism  which  recall  Chaucer 
again  and  again.  The  feast  spread  by  the 
Burgis  Mouse  for  the  Uplandis  Mouse  is 
delightful : — 

After  when  they  disposed  were  to  dine, 
Withouten  grace  they  wash'd  and  went  to 

meat, 
With  all  the  courses  that  cooks  could  define, 
Mutton  and  beef  laid  out  in  slices  greet ; 
And  lordis  fare  thus  could  they  counterfeit. 
Except  one  thing,  they  drank  the  water  clear 
Instead  of  wine,  but  yet  they  made  good  cheer. 

Gawain  Douglas,  Bishop  of  Dunkeld,  was 


CHAUCER'S  INFLUENCE         239 

perhaps  most  nearly  akin  to  the  EngUsh 
Chaucerians.  A  scholar  and  a  man  of  dis- 
tinguished position,  he  has  none  of  the  light- 
ness of  Henryson.  He  takes  poetry  seriously, 
and  inclines  to  trace  a  moral  purpose  even  in 
the  iEneid.  His  Palice  of  Honour  well  illus- 
trates the  manner  in  which  Chaucer's  suc- 
cessors made  free  with  the  framework  of  his 
poems,  while  at  the  same  time  it  shows  the 
growing  delight  in  picturesque  effect  which 
was  one  day  to  break  into  the  Elizabethan 
glow  of  colour.  The  poet  finds  himself 
wandering  in  a  dreary  wilderness  and  breaks 
out  in  complaint  against  Fortune,  who  has 
led  him  there.  As  he  laments,  he  sees 
approaching  him  a  rout  "  of  ladyis  fair  and 
gudlie  men  "  : — 

Amiddes(t)  whom  borne  in  a  golden  chair 
O'er-fret  with  pearl  and  stones  most  preclair  * 
That  draw(e)n  was  by  hackneys  all  milk-white 
Was  set  a  Queen,  as  lily  sweet  of  swair  ^ 
In  purple  robe,  hemmed  with  gems  each  gair  ^ 
Which  gemmed  clasp  es  closed  all  perfite  ^ 
A  diadem,  most  pleasantly  polite. 
Set  on  the  tresses  of  her  golden  hair. 

The  original  form,  which  illustrates  the 
comparatively  modernness  of  the  language 
used  by  Chaucer,  is  as  follows  : 

1  precious.  ^  neck,  ^  gore.  *  perfect. 


240      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Amiddes  quhome,  borne  in  ane  goldin  chair 
Ourfret  with  perle  and  stanis  maist  preclair 
That  drawin  was  by  haiknayis  all    milk 

quhite, 
Was  set  a  Quene,  as  lyllie  sweit  of  swair 
In  purpor  rob  hemmit  with  gold  ilk  gair, 
Quhilk  gemmit  claspis  elosit  all  perflte. 
A  diademe  maist  plesandlie  polite. 
Set  on  the  tressis  of  her  giltin  hair. 
And  in  her  hand  a  scepter  of  delight. 

This  is  Dame  Sapyence,  and  with  her  come 
Diana,  Jephtha's  daughter,  Palamon,  Arcite 
and  Emily,  Troilus  and  Cressida,  David  and 
Bathsheba,  Delilah,  Cleopatra,  Jacob  and 
Rachel,  Venus  (whose  "  hair  as  gold  or  topasis 
was  hewit  ")  and  a  number  more  famous 
lovers  of  antiquity.  A  "  ballet  of  inconstant 
love  "  follows.  This  offends  Venus,  and  the 
poet  is  brought  before  her  to  answer  for  his 
lack  of  respect.  Poetry,  the  Muses,  and  the 
Poets  from  Homer  to  Chaucer  and  Dunbar, 
form  a  Court.  Calliope  pleads  for  him,  and 
he  is  allowed  to  atone  for  his  misdeed  by  com- 
posing "  A  ballet  for  Venus'  pleasour,"  which 
so  delights  the  company  that  he  is  invited  to 
join  the  cavalcade.  .After  travelling  through 
Germany,  France,  Italy,  and  other  countries, 
they  reach  the  Fountain  of  the  Muses.  Here 
they  alight : — 


CHAUCER'S  INFLUENCE         241 

Our  horses  pastured  in  ain  pleasand  plane. 
Low  at  the  foot  of  ain  fair  grene  montane, 
Amid  ain  mead  shaddowit  with  cedar  trees, 

where 

.  .  .  beriall  stremis  rinnand  ouir  stanerie  greis  ^ 
Made  sober  noise,  the  shaw  dinned  agane 
For  birdis  song  and  sounding  of  the  beis.^ 

In  the  midst  of  the  field  Douglas  finds  a 
gorgeous  pavilion  in  which  knights  and  ladies 
are  feasting,  while  a  poet  relates  the  brave 
deeds  of  those  who  in  the  past  proved  "  maist 
worthie  of  thair  handis."  After  listening  to 
these  heroic  tales  the  company  once  more 
sets  out.  Beyond  Damascus  they  reach  their 
journey's  end.  The  poet  is  guided  by  a 
nymph  to  the  foot  of  a  steep  mountain,  at 
the  summit  of  which  stands  the  Palace  of 
Honour.  As  he  climbs  he  sees  before  him  a 
dreadful  abyss  out  of  which  proceed  flames. 
His  ears  are  filled  with  the  sound  of  terrible 
cries;  on  either  side  lie  dead  bodies.  These 
beings  in  torment  are  they  who  set  out  to 
pursue  Honour,  but  "  fell  on  sleuthfuU  sleip," 
and  so  were  "  drownit  in  the  loch  of  cair." 
(It  has  been  suggested  by  critics  bent  on 
finding  an  original  for  the  Pilgrim'' s  Progress^ 
that  Bimyan  found  in  this  the  idea  of  his 

1  grey  stones.  *  bees. 

Q 


242      CHAUCER  AND   HIS   TIMES 

"  byway  to  Hell.")  At  last  he  reaches  the 
Palace,  where  he  is  shown  many  treasures, 
including  Venus'  mirror,  which  reflects  "  the 
deidis  and  fatis  of  euerie  eirdlie  wicht."  Prince 
Honour  is  attended  by  all  the  virtues,  and 
the  poem  ends  by  contrasting  worldly  and 
heavenly  honour  and  commending  virtue. 

The  gracious  figure  of  Sapience,  her  dress 
gleaming  with  jewels,  her  head  crowned 
with  a  diadem,  is  very  different  from  any 
being  of  Lydgate's  or  Occleve's  creation; 
already  the.  first  rays  of  Renaissance  light 
are  showing  above  the  horizon,  and  the  cold 
gray  mists  of  fifteenth-century  poetry  are 
dispersing  before  its  warmth  and  brilliance; 
but  the  radiance  that  heralds  the  new  era  is 
that  of  sunrise,  flushing  the  world  with  a  won- 
der of  colour,  rather  than  of  that  light  of 
common  day  in  which  Chaucer  is  content  to 
walk.  In  the  great  age  to  come,  the  Eliza- 
bethans are  to  show  how  the  rapture  and 
intoxication  of  beauty  may  be  combined 
with  the  sternest  realism,  but  in  the  early 
sixteenth  century  the  children  of  the  new 
birth  walk  with  uncertain  steps  towards  the 
dawn. 

The  poet  who  most  clearly  shows  the 
growing  love  of  beauty,  and  at  the  same  time 


CHAUCER'S  INFLUENCE         248 

is  most  truly  in  sympathy  with  Chaucer,  is 
WilUam  Dunbar.  No  other  poet  of  the  period 
has  such  skill  in  versification,  such  freshness 
and  vigour,  or  such  variety.  His  humour  is 
as  all-pervading  as  Chaucer's.  Now  he  ad- 
dresses a  daring  poem  to  King  James,  slyly 
laughing  at  one  of  his  numerous  love  affairs; 
now  he  writes  the  story  of  the  Two  Friars  of 
Berwick,  or  the  Treatise  of  the  Two  Married 
Women  and  the  Widow,  broadly  comic  fabliaux 
which  might  well  have  found  a  place  among 
the  Canterbury  Tales.  One  of  the  wittiest  of 
his  poems  is  the  Visitation  of  St  Francis^ 
in  which  the  poet  describes  how  his  patron 
saint  appeared  to  him  in  a  dream,  bidding  him 
wear  the  habit  of  a  friar.  Dunbar  answers 
slyly  that  he  has  noticed  more  bishops  than 
friars  are  among  the  saints,  so  perhaps  it  will 
be  as  well  if  St.  Francis,  to  make  all  sure, 
provides  him  with  a  bishop's  robes  instead, 
and  then  he  is  sure  to  go  to  heaven.  Where- 
upon his  visitant  reveals  himself  in  his  true 
character  and  vanishes  in  a  cloud  of  brimstone. 
Two  little  lyrics  on  James  Dog,  Keeper  of 
the  Queen's  wardrobe,  are  very  characteristic. 
In  the  firsf,  "  whan  that  he  had  offendit  him," 
each  verse  ends  with  the  refrain  : — 
I'^^^'^lSadame,  ye  have  a  dangerous  Dog; 


244      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

in  the  second,  when  the  quarrel  had  been 
made  up,  the  refrain  runs  : — 

He  is  na  Dog  :  he  is  a  Lamb. 

As  Mr.  Gregory  Smith  points  out,  "  Dunbar 
is  unHke  Henryson  in  lacking  the  gentler  and 
more  intimate  fun  of  their  master.  He  is  a 
satirist  in  the  stronger  sense ;  more  boisterous 
in  his  fun,  and  showing,  in  his  wildest  frolics, 
an  imaginative  range  which  has  no  counter- 
part in  the  southern  poet  " ;  but  his  sincerity 
and  virility,  his  boyish  sense  of  fun,  remind 
us  of  Chaucer  again  and  again.  The  Reve 
would  thoroughly  have  enjoyed  telling  the 
story  of  the  flying  friar  of  Tungland  who 
courted  disaster  by  using  hen's  feathers. 
Chaucerian,  too,  in  the  truest  sense,  is  Dun- 
bar's power  of  combining  this  keen  sense  of 
the  ridiculous  with  a  no' less  keen  appreciation 
of  beauty.  The  charm  of  his  verse  is  in- 
contestible,  and  his  skill  in  making  effective 
use  of  burdens  and  refrains  shows  an  ear 
sensitive  to  music.  The  Thistle  and  the  Rose, 
written  in  honour  of  the  marriage  of  James  IV 
and  Margaret  Tudor,  borrows  its  idea  from 
the  Parlement  of  Foules,  and  has  something 
of  Chaucer's  tenderness  and  charm.  Dame 
Nature    commands    all    birds,    beasts,    and 


CHAUCER'S  INFLUENCE         245 

flowers  to  appear  before  her,  and  after  some 
debate  proceeds  to  crown  the  thistle  with 
rubies,  while  the  birds  unite  in  singing  the 
praises  of  the  "  freshe  Rose  of  colour  red  and 
white." 

The  Golden  Targe,  an  allegorical  poem  of 
the  conventional  type,  in  which  the  shield 
of  Reason  proves  no  defence  against  the 
arrows  of  Beauty,  contains  a  description  of 
spring  which  Chaucer  himself  never  equalled : — 

Full  angel-like  the  birdes  sang  their  houres 
Within  their  curtains  green,  into  their  boweres 

Apparelled  white  and  red  with  blossoms 
sweet ; 
Enamelled  was  the  field  with  all  coloures 
The  pearly  dropes  shook  in  silver  showeres 

While  all  in  balm  did  branch  and  leaves 
fletei 

To  part  from  Phoebus  did  Aurora  weep ; 
Her  crystal  tears  I  saw  hang  on  the  floweres 
Which  he  for  love  all  drank  up  with  his  heat. 

For  mirth  of  May  with  skippes  and  with  hoppes 
The  birdes  sang  upon  the  tender  croppes  ^ 

With  curious  notes  as  Venus  chapell  clerkes ; 
The  rose  yong,  new  spreding  of  her  knoppes  ^ 

War  powdered  bright  with  hevenly  beriall  ^ 
droppes 
Through  beames  red,  burning  as  ruby  sparkes 
The  skyes  rang  for  shouting  of  the  larkes. 

^  float,      2  tree-tops.      ^  buds.     *  drops  clear  as  beryl. 


246     CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

And  in  addition  to  all  these,  Dunbar  writes 
serious  religious  poetry  on  such  subjects  as 
Love,  Earthly  and  Divine,  draws  a  by  no 
means  unimpressive  picture  of  the  Dance  of 
the  Seven  Deadly  Sins,  and  in  his  Lament  for 
the  Makaris  (poets),  with  its  haunting  refrain :- — 

Timor  Mortis  conturbat  me 
shows   a   sense   of  the  transitoriness   of  all 
earthly  pleasure. 

Enough  has  already  been  said  to  show  that 
the  influences  that  moulded  sixteenth-century 
literature  in  England  were  not  such  as  to 
lead  its  poets  to  model  themselves  on  Chaucer. 
In  the  Golden  Targe,  Dunbar  gives  expression 
to  the  popular  view  of  Chaucer  in  his  day : — 

O  reverend  Chaucer,  rose  of  rethoris  ^  all, 

As  in  our  tongue  a  flower  imperial. 

That  rose  in  Britain  ever,  who  readeth  right, 

Thou  bear'st,  of  makers  ^  the  triumph  royal ; 

Thy  fresh  enamelled  termes  celestial 

This  matter  could  illumined  have  full  bright, 

Wert  thou  not  of  our  English  all  the  light. 

Surmounting  every  tongue  terrestrial 

As  far  as  Mayes  morrow  doth  midnight  ? 

And  here  again,  as  in  Occleve,  we  see  that  it 

is  for  his  language  rather  than  for  his  invention 

that  the  poet  is  praised.     But  the  sixteenth 

^  flower  of  all  rhetoricians.  *  poets. 


CHAUCER'S  INFLUENCE  247 

century  saw  the  change  from  Middle  Enghsh 
to  Modern,  a  change  which,  for  the  time  being, 
lost  men  the  key  to  Chaucer's  verse.  Old 
inflections  had  gradually  dropped  off,  the 
accented  *^  e  "  which  ends  so  many  of  Chaucer's 
words  had  become  mute,  and  the  result  was 
that  the  poets  of  the  new  age  found  Chaucer's 
lines  impossible  to  scan.  A  generation  whose 
taste  was  formed  on  Classical  and  Italian 
models,  whose  precisians  urged  the  necessity 
of  discarding  "  bald  and  beggarly  rhymning  " 
in  favour  of  the  classical  system  of  accent, 
had  not  patience  enough  to  rediscover  the 
laws  that  governed  Chaucer's  verse.  It  says 
much  for  the  insight  and  geniune  poetic  taste 
of  Elizabethan  critics  that  they  one  and  all 
speak  of  Chaucer  with  admiration  and  respect. 
Fresh  editions  of  his  works  continued  to 
appear  at  frequent  intervals  throughout  the 
century,  and  frequent  references  to  his  name 
show  that  they  were  well  known  to  the  poets 
of  the  period.  To  Spenser  he  is  "  The  God 
of  shepheards  " : — 

Who  taught  me  homely,  as  I  can,  to  make. 
He,  whilst  he  lived,  was  the  soueraigne  head 
Of  shepheards  all,  that  been  with  loue  ytake; 

and  he  goes  on  to  protest  that 


248      CHAUCER  AND  HIS   TIMES 

.  .  all  hys  passing  skil  with  him  is  jfledde, 
The  fame  whereof  doth  dayly  greater  growe. 

The  famous  reference  in  the  Faerie  Queene  to 

Dan  Chaucer,  well  of  Englishe  undefyled, 
On  Fames  eternal  beadroU  worthie  to  be  f  yled, 

has  become  part  of  the  Chaucerian  critic's 
stock  in  trade,  and  is  as  apt  and  as  well- 
known  as  Dryden's  phrase  which  speaks  of 
Chaucer  as  "a  perpetual  fountain  of  good 
sense."  Book  III,  canto  xxv  of  the  Faerie 
Queene  contains  a  paraphrase  of  some  of  the 
lines  on  true  love  in  the  Frankleyns  Tale,  and 
Book  IV  boldly  promises  to  continue  the  story 
of 

Couragious  Cambell,  and  stout  Triamond, 
With  Canacee  and  Cambine  linckt  in  lovely 
bond. 

Whether  the  Spenserian  stanza  is  a  modifi- 
cation of  the  rhyme  royal  or  of  the  stanza 
used  by  Boccaccio  and  Ariosto  it  is  impossible 
to  say — all  three  are  obviously  related  to 
each  other — but  in  view  of  Spenser's  admira- 
tion for  Chaucer,  and  his  deliberate  attempt 
to  use  "  Chaucerisms,"  it  is  at  least  probable 
that  in  this  respect  the  Faerie  Queene  owes  a 
debt  to  Troilus  and  Criseyde,  In  Mother 
Hubbard^s  Tale  and  Colin  Clouts  come  home 


CHAUCER'S   INFLUENCE         249 

again,  Spenser  is  frankly,  though  unsuccess- 
fully, imitating  Chaucer's  style.  William 
Browne,  the  poet  of  Tavistock,  also  showed 
his  admiration  for  Chaucer  by  an  attempt  to 
imitate  him  in  his  Shepheard's  Pipe,  a  series 
of  eclogues  modelled  partly  on  the  Shepherd^ s 
Calendar  and  partly  on  the  Canterbury  Tales, 
In  the  concluding  lines  of  the  first  eclogue, 
which  contains  the  story  of  Jonathas,  Browne 
confesses  his  indebtedness  to  Occleve : — 

SchoUer  unto  Tityrus 
Tityrus  the  bravest  swaine 
Ever  lived  on  plaine  .  .  . 

thus  using  for  Chaucer  the  name  bestowed  on 
him  by  Spenser. 

During  the  seventeenth  century  Chaucer's 
fame  seems  to  have  suffered  a  temporary 
eclipse.  Between  1602  and  1687  not  a  single 
edition  of  his  works  appeared,  and  the  edition 
of  1687  is  in  reality  no  more  than  a  re-issue 
of  Speght's.  The  poets  hardly  mention  his 
name.  Milton  does  indeed  make  a  reference 
to  the  Squieres  Tale,  but  his  works  show  no 
trace  of  Chaucer's  influence.  Towards  the 
end  of  the  century,  however,  there  was  a 
revival  of  interest.  Dryden  tells  us  that 
Mr.  Cowley  declared  he  had  no  taste  of  him, 
but  my  lord  of  Leicester,  on  the  other  hand. 


250      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

was  so  warm  an  admirer  of  the  Canterbury 
Tales  that  he  thought  it  "  Httle  less  than 
profanation  and  sacrilege  "  to  modernise  their 
language,  and  not  until  his  death  did  Dryden 
venture  to  turn  into  modern  English  the  tales 
of  the  Knight,  the  Nun's  Priest,  and  the 
Wife  of  Bath,  and  the  character  of  the  poo« 
Parson  in  the  Prologue.  The  wigs  and  ruffles 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  however,  suit  but 
ill  the  sturdy  figure  of  the  fourteenth-century 
poet.  We  stand  aghast  before  Dryden's 
Arcite,  who,  in  the  throes  of  death,  exclaims  :• — 

No  language  can  express  the  smallest  part 
Of  what  I  feel,  and  suffer  in  my  heart, 
•  •  •  •  •  • 

How  I  have  loved;   excuse  my  faltering 

tongue : 
My  spirit's  feeble,  and  my  pains  are  strong. 
This  I  may  say,  I  only  grieve  to  die. 
Because  I  lose  my  charming  Emily. 

It  is  an  excellent  specimen  of  the  poetry 
of  1699,  but  it  is  not  Chaucer. 

Dryden  is,  indeed,  far  more  eighteenth 
than  seventeenth  century  in  feeling,  and  while 
the  authors  of  the  eighteenth  century  are  too 
really  great  not  to  appreciate  true  poetry 
wherever  they  see  it,  their  own  taste  leads 
them  to  the  erection  of  "  neat  Modern  build- 


CHAUCER'S   INFLUENCE         251 

ings  "  rather  than  to  the  admiration  of  "an 
ancient  majestick  piece  of  Gothick  Archi- 
tecture," and  all  attempts  to  combine  the  two 
must  necessarily  be  foredoomed  to  failure. 
Pope  paraphrases  the  Hous  of  Fame  ;  Prior 
writes  Two  Imitations  of  Chaucer,  viz, 
Susanah  and  the  Two  Elders,  and  Earl  Roberfs 
Mice  ;  Gay  writes  a  comedy  on  the  Wife  of 
Bath,  with  Chaucer  himself  for  hero;  the 
Rev.  Thomas  Warton,  who,  as  professor  of 
poetry  at  Oxford,  ought  to  have  known  better, 
writes  an  elegy  on  the  death  of  Pope  in  an 
extraordinary  jargon  which  he  apparently 
considers  Chaucerian  English.  (See  Miss 
Spurgeon's  Chaucer  devant  la  Critique,  pp.  62- 
75.)  But  while  these,  and  numerous  other 
works  of  the  same  kind,  prove  that  Chaucer 
was  widely  read  at  the  time,  they  afford  no 
evidence  at  all  of  his  having  any  direct  in- 
fluence upon  the  general  development  of 
eighteenth-century  poetry.  His  place  as  an 
English  classic  is  firmly  established,  but 
centuries  have  passed  since  he  wrote,  and  the 
point  of  view  of  the  men  of  the  new  age  differs 
too  widely  from  that  of  their  forefathers  for 
any  imitation  to  be  possible,  except  by  way 
of  a  conscious  experiment.  The  most  amazing 
of    all    modernisations    was    that    of    1841. 


252      CHAUCER  AND  HIS  TIMES 

Richard  Hengist  Home,  inspired,  if  we  may 
believe  his  own  words,  by  no  less  a  person 
than  Wordsworth,  hit  on  the  most  unfortunate 
idea  of  issuing  Chaucer's  poems  in  two  volumes 
done  into  modern  English  by  a  sort  of  joint- 
stock  company  of  contemporary  poets. 
Wordsworth  himself,  Leigh  Hunt,  Miss  Barrett, 
Robert  Browning,  Alfred  Tennyson,  Bulwer 
Lytton  and  the  Cowden  Clarkes,  were  to  be 
among  the  contributors.  Landor  showed  his 
usual  common-sense  by  refusing  to  take  any 
part  in  it,  and  his  letter  to  Home  on  the 
subject  is  worth  quoting :  "  Indeed  I  do 
admire  him  (Chaucer),  or  rather,  love  him.  .  . . 
Pardon  me  if  I  say  that  I  would  rather  see 
Chaucer  quite  alone,  in  the  dew  of  his  sunny 
morning,  than  with  twenty  clever  gentlefolks 
about  him,  arranging  his  shoestrings  and 
buttoning  his  doublet.  I  like  even  his  lan- 
guage. I  will  have  no  hand  in  breaking  his 
dun  but  rich-painted  glass  to  put  in  (if  clearer) 
much  thinner  panes."  It  is  comforting  to 
reflect  that  the  first  volume  proved  a  failure, 
'  and  the  second  never  saw  the  light. 

Fortunately  the  labours  of  such  scholars  as 
Professor  Skeat  and  Dr.  Furnivall  have  saved 
us  from  all  fear  of  being  left  in  future  to  the 
tender  mercies  of  the  moderniser.    However 


CHAUCER'S  INFLUENCE         253 

great  may  be  the  changes  that  are  to  pa$s 
over  our  language,  however  strange  the 
tongue  of  fourteenth-century  England  may 
sound  in  the  ears  of  our  descendants,  Chaucer's 
English  has  been  preserved  once  for  all,  and 
never  again  can  we  lose  the  key  to  his  world 
of  harmony  and  delight. 

In  Chaucer  I  am  sped 
His  tales  I  have  red ; 
His  mater  is  delectable 
Solacious  and  commendable ; 
His  english  wel  alowed. 
So  as  it  enprowed,^ 
For  as  it  is  enployed 
There  is  no  englyshe  voyd — 
At  those  days  moch  commended, 
And  now  men  wold  haue  amended 
His  englishe  where-at  they  barke, 
And  marre  all  they  warke ; 
Chaucer,  that  famous  Clarke 
His  tearmes  were  not  darcke. 
But  pleasunt,  easy,  and  playne; 
No  worde  he  wrote  in  vayne. 

(Skelton,  introductory  lines  to  the  Booh  of 
Phillip  sparoWf  1507  ?) 

^  proved. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Skeat.  Chaucer^  text  and  notes,  seven  volumes  (Clarendon 
Press,  1894). 

W.  P.  Ker.  English  Literature :  Medieval.  "  Home  Univer- 
sity Library  "  (Henry  Holt  &  Co.,  1913). 

Ten  Brink.  History  of  English  Literature^  vol.  ii,  pp.  33-199. 
Translated  by  W.  Clarke  Robinson,  Ph.D.  (Henry 
Holt&  Co.,  1901). 

Ten  Brink.  Language  and  Metre  of  Chaucer,  translated  by 
M.  Bentinck  Smith  (Macmillan  &  Co.,  1901). 

LouNSBURY.  Studies  in  Chaucer,  his  Life  and  Writings 
(Harper  &  Brothers,  1892). 

Gr.  C.  OouLTON.  Chaucer  and  his  England  (Methuen,  2nd. 
ed.  1909). 

Dryden.  Preface  to  the  Fables.  Essays  of  John  Dryden,  ed. 
W.  P.  Ker,  vol.  ii,  pp.  246-273  (Clarendon  Press,  1900). 

Transactions  of  the  Chaucer  Society  (Kegan  Paul,  Trench,  &  Co.). 

A.  W.  Ward.     Chaucer,     "  English  Men  of  Letters." 

Cambridge  History  of  Literature^  vol.  ii  (Cambridge  University 
Press,  1908). 

SoHOFiELD.  English  Literature  from  the  Norma/n,  Conquest  to 
Chaucer  (Macmillan  &  Co.,  1906). 

G.  E.  &  W.  H.  Hadov^^.  Oxford  Treasury  of  English  Literature^ 
vol.  i  (Clarendon  Press,  1906). 

GERMAN  AND  FRENCH  WORKS 

Ten  Brink.     Chaucer  Studien  (Triibner,  1870). 
Legouis.     Geoffrey  Chaucer  (Bloud   et  Cie.,    1910)  (Eng.  tr# 
Lailavoix.     Dent,  1912). 

Spurgeon.    Chaucer  devant  la  critique  (Hachette  et  Cie.,  1911). 
254 


INDEX 


A.B.C.,  Chaucer's,  42,  48 
Against  Women  Unconstant,  41 
Anclidaand  Arcite,  46 
An  Amorous  Compleint,  41,  46 
Ashby,  George,  234 

Boccaccio,  19,  20,  39,  49.  61,  63,  69, 
73,  76,  77,  248 

Boethius's  Consolations  of  Philo- 
sophy, 47,  50 

Book  of  the  Buchesse,  the,  12,  16,  40, 
43-6,  47,  49,  50,  62,  64, 106,  180-2, 
171,  179,  183,  190,  194,  227 

Bradshaw,  Henry,  234 

Browne,  William,  249 

Burgh,  Benedict,  234 

Cambridge  History  ofLiteratur€,'th.e, 

42  237  *' 

K  Canterbury  Tales,  the,  46,  49,  62,  6.7, 

83,  107/117-29,  136-41,)  l^D.  1^7, 

185,  21^  214,  222-3,  231  "-J.   ^T 
Chanouns  Yemannes  Tale^  223-6 
Chaucer,  Agnes,  13  ^T.3>y  ' 

Apocrypha,  67-8  '•  ^ ' 

,  Elizabeth,  18 

,  Geoffrey,  birth,  7 ;  education, 

9-14 ;   marriaga<  15-18 ;   public 

life,  18-30  ;  death,  31 

,  John,  8,  13,  23 

,  Lewis,  17  67 

Chaucer's  Originals  and  Analogues 

84,99 
Chaucer,  Philippa,  15-17 

,  Thomas,  17,  18 

Oiarence,  Lionel,  Duke  of,  13 
Clerkes  Tale,   16,  19,  46,   125,  133, 

134,  215 
Compleint  of  Mars,  50,  156 
Compleint  to  his  Lady,  40 
Compleinte  unto  Pite,  40,  46 
Coulton,   G.  C,   Chaucer  and  his 

England,  18,  20 
Court  of  Love,  the,  10 

Dante,  19,  20,  48,  50,  54,  101, 102, 
108 


255 


Deguileville,  Guillaume  de,  42,  44 
Douglas,  Gawain,  12  ;  influence  of 

Chaucer  on,  238-42 
Dunbar,  242-6 
Dryden,  John,  248,  249,  250 

Fielding,  157 

Frankeleyns  Tale,  128,  129, 184, 192, 

210,  248 
Freres  Tale,  197,  210 
Fumivall,  Dr.,  99,  252 

Gascoigne,  17 

Gatmt,  John  of,  15,  18,  21,  25,  43, 

60,  201,  206 
Gower,  John,  22,  37,  209  V 

Hawes,  Stephen,  235-6 
Hendyug,  Proverbs  of,  35,  36 
Henryson,  238-9,  244 
House  of  Fame,  the,  16,  21,  53-62, 

128,  153,  155,  156,  188,  209,  232, 

251 

Jonson,  Ben,  155 

Ker,  W.  P.,  32,40 
Kingis  Quair,  the,  236-7 
Knightes   Tale,   46,    73-6,  83,  128, 
132,  180,  181, 182,  229 

Lak  of  Stedfastnesse,  216 

Landor,  Walter  Savage,  252 

Layamon,  32,  36 

Legend  of  Good  Women,  the,  11,  21, 
25,  42,  62,  63-7,  106,  191,  206, 
216 

Leland,  10,  14 

Lenvoy  a  Scogan,  24 

Lenvoy  de  Chaucer  a  Bukton,  16, 
125 

Lounsbury,  10 

Lydgate,  Portrait  of  niedia3val 
schoolboy,  9 ;  versification,  47, 
54;  Temple  of  Glas,  62;  influence 
of  Chaucer  on,  229-32,  242 

LyfofSt.  Cecyle,  46,  48,  64 


256 


INDEX 


Machault,  Guillaume  de,  39,  67 
Man  of  Lawes  Tale,  47,  85-97,  136, 

205,  210,  219,  226 
Marchantes  Tale,  15,  126 
Maunclples  Tale,  193,  210 
Merciles  Beavte,  40 
Milleres  Tale,  148,  149, 186-7 
Milton,  249 

Monkes  Tale,  48,  100-2 

Nonne  Preestes  Tale,  84,  94,  97-100, 
140,  141,  153,  164,  170,  187-8,  208 
Norton,  Thomas,  234 

Occleve,  229-34,  242,  249 
Of  the    Wretched    Engendering  of 
Mankind,  46,  48,  93 

Palamon  and  Arcite,  46,  49,  64 
Pardoners  Tale,  8,  9, 157-65 
Parlement  of  Fo\des,  the,  16,  17,  40, 

49,  50-3,  62,  64,  69,  106,  165,  189, 

193,  194,  195,  244 
i  Persmies  Tale,  217 
Petrarch,  19,  20,  49 
Phisiciens  Tale,  135 

urs  Plowman,  33,  38,  211-12 
Pop«,  Alexander,  251 
Prloi'esses  Tale,  202-4 

Betters,  14 

Ripley,  Sir  George,  234 

RoUe,  Richard,  33 

Romance  of  the  Rose,  the,  41,  63,  70, 

206,  237 


Romances,  English  metrical, 
70-2,  143,  175 

Saintsbury,  42,  230 

Seconde  Nonnes  Tale,  46,  48,  136 

Shakespeare,  Romeo  and  JtUiet, 

Othello,  104;  122,  127,  182,  1 

147,  148.  152 
Sii  Th&pas,  82-3,  156 
S'keat,  introductory  note,  ri, 

30,  38,  48,  54,  83,  252 
Skelton,  quotation  from,  253 
Snell,  Age  of  Chaucer,  8 
Somnours  Tale,  170,  210 
Speght,  10,  249 
Spenser,  181,  182, 188-9, 195, 2B£ 

247,  248,  249 
Squieres  Tale.  79-82,  183,  165,  1 

191 
Swift,  155 

Ten  Brink,  History  of  Eng> 
Literature,  30,  40,  43,  49,  201 

TkeTaUofthe  Wyf  of  Bathe,  13^ 
182,  218 

To  Rosemnunde,  41 

Treatise  on  the  Astrolabe,  67,  221 

Trivet,  Nicholas,  84  (note),  85, 
97 

Troilus  and  Criseyde,  26,  41,  4i, 
62,  65,  76-9,  82,  103,^06-17,  1 
136,137;  165,*179.  184,  185,  ] 
207,  208-9,  211,  231,  286 

Truth,  ballade  of,  31 


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